Return to homeChurch History web sites: http://www.vatican.va/30-64 Peter
served as the first pope. By 2003 he was still noted as the
longest-serving, for a total of 34 or 37 years, until 64 or 67 A.D.
(AP, 10/16/03)

50-60 The Didache, the earliest catechism of the
Catholic church, was written about this time as teachings of the 12
Apostles to the gentiles. It was later discovered in a monastery in
Constantinople and published by P. Bryennios in 1883.
{Turkey, Books, Vatican}
(SFC, 10/27/11,
p.E1)(www.earlychristianwritings.com/didache.html)

136-140 Hyginus was pope. He was later proclaimed
a saint.
(WUD, 1994, p.697)

c182-c251 Origen of Caesarea, a church father,
urged Christians not to celebrate birthdays because they were a
pagan custom.
(WSJ, 12/18/98, p.W15)

199-217 Pope Zephyrinus led the Church.
(ITV, 1/96, p.59)

~200 Pope Zephyrinus assigned
his deacon, Calixtus (a former slave), to administer the large
underground complex beneath the Appian Way. The subterranean
graveyard had existed from about 150CE. This first official
Christian cemetery probably originated as the private open-air
burial ground of the noble Cecili family of Rome. From this time on
it became known as the Catacombs of St. Calixtus. It extended over
an area of 20 km., one 3-5 levels, and includes some 500,000 tombs.
(ITV, 1/96, p.59)

200-400 Christianity spread rapidly in Numidia and
the diocese of Lamiggiga was established. It was later abandoned and
just the name was used as an honorary jurisdiction for Auxiliary
bishops.
(SFC, 9/19/98, p.C1)

215 Clement of Alexandria, a
Church father, died. He cited early efforts to fix the Nativity on
Apr 19, 20th or May 20.
(WSJ, 12/18/98, p.W15)

235 An inscription in Greek in
the Calixtian Complex of Rome was dedicated to the pope St. Pontian,
who died in the Sardinian mines.
(ITV, 1/96, p.60)

235 An inscription in Greek in
the Calixtian Complex of Rome was dedicated to pope St. Anterus, who
reigned for only 43 days and died in prison.
(ITV, 1/96, p.60)

250 An inscription in Greek in
the Calixtian Complex of Rome was dedicated to pope St. Fabian, who
re-organized the Church in a period of peace and was then martyred
during the Decian persecutions.
(ITV, 1/96, p.60)

254 Pope St. Lucius I, who
spent part of his pontificate in exile, was buried in the Calixtian
Complex of Rome and has an inscription in Greek.
(ITV, 1/96, p.60)

254 May 12, St. Stephen I began
his reign as the 23rd Catholic Pope. According to the "Liber
Pontificalis" he instituted the rule that clerics should wear
special clothes at their ministrations.
(SC, internet, 5/12/97)(HN, 5/12/98)

258 A red agate cup with gold
handles, the Santo Caliz, was sent to Spain by Pope Sixtus II and
St. Laurence as Rome went under siege by the Persians. In 1437 the
church moved it to the Cathedral of Valencia.
(SSFC, 5/27/06, p.G3)

267 Dec 26, Dionysius, bishop
of Rome and saint, died.
(MC, 12/26/01)

270 The Catholic Bishop
Valentine was clubbed, stoned and beheaded by Emperor Claudius for
refusing to acknowledge the monarch’s outlawing of marriage. The
Catholics then made Valentine a symbol to oppose the Roman
mid-February custom in honor of the God Lupercus, where Roman
teenage girls’ names were put in a box and selected by young Roman
men for "sex toy" use until the next lottery.
(SFEM, 2/9/97, p.11)

283 Pope St. Eutychian escaped
persecution but struggled with early heresies. He was buried in the
Calixtian Complex of Rome and has an inscription in Greek.
(ITV, 1/96, p.60)
283 Sebastian, a Christian
soldier, enlisted in the Roman army about this time. Emp.
Diocletian, unaware that he was a Christian, appointed him as a
captain of the Praetorian Guard. When he treated Christian prisoners
due for martyrdom kindly, Diocletian reproached him for his supposed
ingratitude and ordered him executed by arrow. He survived and
returned to preach to Diocletian. In 287 Diocletian ordered
Sebastian to be beaten to death.
(www.economicexpert.com/a/Sebastian.htm)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Sebastian)

288 Sebastian (b.256), a
Christian and Roman soldier, was beaten to death about this time on
the orders of Roman Emp. Diocletian. The exact date when St.
Sebastian was canonized by the Catholic Church is unknown. The
Saint's canonization is categorized as pre-congregation, meaning it
occurred prior to the formation of the Congregation for the Causes
of Saints in 1588, according to the Vatican. St. Sebastian is known
as the patron saint of athletes.
(www.newadvent.org/cathen/13668a.htm)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Sebastian)

296 Apr 22, St. Gaius ended his
reign as Catholic Pope.
(HN, 4/22/98)

299-311 The period of Christian persecutions begun
by Diocletian.
(WSJ, 10/30/98, p.W11)

300-400 It was during the Fourth century that the
celebration of Christ's birth on December 25 was gradually adopted
by most Eastern Churches.
(HNQ, 12/25/99)
300-400 Saint Nectarius of Auvergne (also known as
Nectarius of St-Nectaire, Nectarius of Limagne, Necterius of
Senneterre), venerated as a 4th century martyr and Christian
missionary, was one of the seven missionaries sent by Pope Fabian
from Rome to Gaul to spread Christianity there. Nectarius was
accompanied by the priests Baudimius (Baudenius, Baudime) and
Auditor (Auditeur); tradition states that they were all brothers.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nectarius_of_Auvergne)

309-310 Apr 18, St. Eusebius began his reign as
Catholic Pope. He ruled for just 4 months in either 309 or 310.
(PTA, 1980, p.62)(WUD, 1994 p.492)(HN, 4/18/98)

311 Jul 2, St. Miltiades began
his reign as Catholic Pope.
(SC, 7/2/02)

311 At the consecration of
bishop Caecilian of Carthage, one of the three bishops, Felix,
bishop of Aptunga, who consecrated Caecilian, had given copies of
the Bible to the Roman persecutors. A group of about 70
bishops formed a synod and declared the consecration of the bishop
to be invalid. Great debate arose concerning the validity of
the sacraments (baptism, the Lord's Supper, etc.) by one who had
sinned so greatly against other Christians.
(http://religion-cults.com/heresies/fourth.htm)

311 The Donatists were a
Christian sect that developed in northern Africa [Numidia] and
maintained that it alone constituted the whole and only true church
and that baptisms and ordinations of the orthodox clergy were
invalid. The Donatists insisted that sinners must be re-baptized.
(WUD, 1994, p.425)(SFC, 9/19/98, p.C1)(Econ,
5/14/05, p.87)

316 Diocletian, former emperor
of Rome, died. By this time there were about 30,000 converts to
Christianity and some 33 popes had followed in the footsteps of St.
Peter.
(ITV, 1/96, p.58)

325 May 20, An ecumenical
council was inaugurated by Emperor Constantine in Nicea, Asia Minor.
The Church Council of Nicaea (aka Iznik) in Asia Minor condemned the
teaching of Arius, a Christian priest at Alexandria (d.336), who
held that Christ was not divine in the same sense as God the Father.
The council fixed Orthodox Easter as the first Sunday after the
first full moon following the vernal equinox unless the date falls
on the 1st day of Passover, in which case it moves to the next
Sunday.
(WUD, 1994, p.80,81)(Sky, 4/97, p.56)(SFC,
4/25/97, p.A21)(HN, 5/20/98)

325 Aug 25, Council of Nicaea
ended with adoption of the Nicene Creed establishing the doctrine of
the Holy Trinity. The Council also decreed that priests cannot marry
after their ordination.
(MC, 8/25/02)(SFC, 3/16/02, p.A3)

326 The Church of the Nativity
in Bethlehem was begun by the Roman emperor Constantine.
(SFC, 12/26/96, p.B2)

336 Dec 25, The first recorded
celebration of Christmas on this day took place in Rome. By this
year Dec 25 was established in the Liturgy of the Roman Church as
the birthday of Jesus. [see 354] The Basilica of St. Anastasia was
built as soon as a year after the Nicaean Council. It probably was
where Christmas was first marked on Dec. 25, part of broader efforts
to link pagan practices to Christian celebrations in the early days
of the new religion. In 2007 Italian archaeologists unveiled an
underground grotto, near St. Anastasia, that they believe ancient
Romans revered as the place where a wolf nursed Rome's legendary
founder Romulus and his twin brother Remus.
(WSJ, 12/18/98, p.W15)(AP, 12/25/99)(AP,
12/22/07)

353-431 St. Paulinus, poet and Bishop of Mola:
"For it is after the Solstice, when Christ born in the flesh with
the new sun transformed the season of cold winter, and giving to
mortal men a healing dawn, commanded the nights to decrease at his
coming with advancing day."
(WSJ, 12/18/98, p.W15)

354 Augustine (Aurelius
Augustinus, d.430) was born in Tagaste, North Africa (modern Souk
Ahras, Algeria). Augustine of Hippo, Church Father and philosopher,
held that as long as the fetus was "shapeless" homicide laws did not
apply because it had no senses and no soul. "Total abstinence
is easier than perfect moderation." He fused the New Testament with
Greek philosophy. "Nothing is so powerful in drawing the spirit of a
man downwards as the caresses of a woman."
(http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/augustine.html)(AM, Mar/Apr 97
p.13)(HN, 11/13/98) (SFC, 3/16/02, p.A3)

354 Pope Liberius decided to
add the Nativity to the Church calendar and selected December 25 to
celebrate it. [see 336]
(WSJ, 12/21/07, p.A19)

355 Donatus, bishop of Casae
Nigrae in North Africa, died. He taught that the effectiveness of
the sacraments depends on the moral character of the minister. In
other words, if a minister who was involved in a serious enough sin
were to baptize a person, that baptism would be considered invalid.
(http://religion-cults.com/heresies/fourth.htm)

410 Aug 24, Rome was overrun by
the Visigoths, an event that symbolized the fall of the Western
Roman Empire. German barbarians sacked Rome [see Aug 18].
(V.D.-H.K.p.87)(AP, 8/24/97)(HN, 8/24/98)

418 Dec 27, Zosimus, Greek Pope
(417-8), died.
(MC, 12/27/01)

430 Aug 28, Augustine (b.354)
died in Hippo (Annaba, Algeria) with a Vandal army outside the gates
of the city. His writings included "The Confessions." In 1999 Garry
Wills authored the biography "St. Augustine." Augustine had
developed the theory of a "just war" and said a nation’s leaders
must consider among other things, anticipated loss of civilian life
and whether all peaceful options have been exhausted before war
starts. In 2003 Garry Wills authored "Saint Augustine's Sin." In
2005 James J. O’Donnell authored “Augustine: A New Biography."
(www.connect.net/ron/august.html)(SSFC, 12/21/03,
p.M6)(Econ, 5/14/05, p.86)

431 The Council of Ephesus was
held to deal with the heretics and heresies of the day such as
Arianism and Apollinarianism. The council condemned Nestorianism,
which taught that there were 2 person in Christ and that Mary was
the mother of the human Christ but not of God. In 2009 Miri Rubin
authored “Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary."
(Usenet, 3/4/97)(PTA, 1980, p.86)(Econ, 2/21/09,
p.84)

431 The Assyrians and Chaldeans
broke from what was to become the Roman Catholic Church over a
theological dispute.
(WSJ, 3/12/00, p.A10)

440 Aug 19, Pope Sixtus III
(432-440) died.
(PTA, 1980, p.88)

451 Oct 8, Council of Chalcedon
(4th ecumenical council) opened. The Council declared that the two
natures of Christ, divine and human, were united without change,
division or confusion in Christ. This led to the formation of the
Coptic Monophysite Church which continued to hold that Jesus had but
one divine nature. Copt comes from the Arabic word for Egyptian.
(CU, 6/87)(SFC, 3/31/97, p.A9)(MC, 10/8/01)

452 Pope Leo I met Attila the
Hun on the banks of the Mincio and Attila agreed to make peace and
spare Rome.
(PTA, 1980, p.90)

496 Nov 21, Pope Galasius, an
African by birth or descent, died. He changed the mid-February
lottery rules for young Roman men so that they drew names of
Catholic Saints to emulate instead of young girls for play. The
Lupercalia pagan rite had been revived to bring good luck to the
city following a plague.
(PTA, 1980, p.98)(SFEM, 2/9/97, p.11)

549 Jerusalem held to a Jan 6
date for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus until this year.
In the end the West added the Epiphany and the East added the Dec 25
nativity to their liturgical calendars.
(WSJ, 12/18/98, p.W15)

590 Pope Gregory said he
spotted an angel atop Hadrian’s Mausoleum. The site was then
reconfigured as a fortress called Castel Sant’Angelo. In 1925 it
became a national museum.
(SSFC, 5/1/05, p.F8)

590 Pope Gregory I revised an
earlier list to form the more common Seven Deadly Sins, by folding
sorrow/despair into acedia, vainglory into pride, and adding
extravagance and envy, while removing fornication from the list
(Anger, Envy, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Pride, Sloth). In the order
used by both Pope Gregory and by Dante Alighieri in his epic poem
The Divine Comedy, the seven deadly sins are as follows: 1. luxuria
(extravagance/lust) 2. gula (gluttony) 3. avaritia (avarice/greed)
4. acedia (acedia/discouragement/sloth) 5. ira (anger/wrath) 6.
invidia (envy) 7. superbia (pride).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins)

590-604 Pope Gregory the Great led the Church. He
established the popes as the de facto rulers of central Italy, and
strengthened the papal primacy over the Churches of the West.
(CU, 6/87)

642 Pope Theodore I began using
the title “Patriarch of the West." In 2006 the Vatican took the
unusual step of explaining its decision to renounce the title,
saying the omission of "patriarch of the West," from the new edition
of the Annuario Pontificio, the Vatican's 2,373-page directory of
prelates, should benefit relations with the Orthodox Church, not
hinder them.
(AP, 3/23/06)

c700 Nov 1, The Celts of
Ireland, Great Britain and northern France celebrated Oct. 31 as
their New Years' Eve from around 1000-500BC. The pagan harvest event
incorporated masks to ward off evil ones, as dead relatives were
believed to visit families on this night. The Catholic holiday of
All Saints' Day, set for Nov. 1, was instituted around 700 CE to
supplant this All Hallows' Eve. Halloween was transplanted to the US
in the 1840s.
(WSJ, 10/28/99, p.A24)

700-800 The Catholic Church changed its rules on
fasting and allowed fish to be eaten on Fridays and during Lent.
(NH, 5/96, p.58)

c700-800 Dionysus Exiguus (Dennis the Short), a
Catholic monk, created a chronology for Pope St. John I with a
calendar that began in the year CE 1.
(SFEC,11/16/97, BR p.5)

757 May 29, St. Paul I (d.767)
began his reign as Catholic Pope.
(PTA, 1980, p.188)(SC, 5/29/02)

768 Aug 7, Stephen IV was
consecrated as Pope. He served to 772.
(PTA, 1980, p.190)

787 Sep 24, The 2nd Council of
Nicaea (7th ecumenical council) opened in Asia Minor.
(http://www.malaspina.com/site/person_672.asp)

787 Oct 23, Byzantine
Empress Irene (c. 752-803) attended the final session of the 2nd
church council at Nicaea, Bithynia [now Iznik, a city in Anatolia
(now part of Turkey)]. The council formally revived the adoration of
icons and reunited the Eastern church with that of Rome.
(http://www.malaspina.com/site/person_672.asp)

834 Oct 31, This evening became
All Hallow’s Eve with the establishment of Nov 1 as Feast of All
Saints by Pope Gregory IV.
(PTA, 1980, p.204)(SFC, 10/31/01, p.C2)

834 Nov 1, This day was
declared to be All Saints’ Day by the Catholic Church. [see
835CE]
(SFC, 10/31/01, p.C2)

835 Nov 1, After the
spread of Christianity through the west, the Roman Catholic Church
in 835 A.D. made November 1 a church holiday to honor all the
saints. This celebration was called All Saint's Day or All Hallows
and the day before it--October 31--was called All Hallow's Eve
(later Halloween). Pope Gregory extended the Feast of All Saints on
Nov 1 to France and Germany. [see 834CE]
(PTA, 1980, p.204)(HNPD, 10/31/99)

842 Feb 19, The Medieval
Iconoclastic Controversy ended as a council in Constantinople
formally reinstated the veneration of icons in the churches.
(MC, 2/19/02)

896 Apr 4, Pope Formosus died.
His body was exhumed by his successor in the Cadaver Synod. He was
then put on trial for perjury, found guilty and dumped in the Tiber
River.
(PTA, 1980, p.224)(WSJ, 6/27/01, p.A14)

900 Benedict IV succeeded John
IX as Pope.
(PTA, 1980, p.236)

903 Benedict IV, Catholic Pope,
died.
(PTA, 1980, p.236)

955 May 16, Alberich II,
(bastard?) son of Octavianus, was elected pope.
(MC, 5/16/02)

1001 Otto III was ousted. He
had moved his thrown from Germany to Rome and fancied himself Holy
Roman Emperor.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R54)

1002 Jun 21, Pope Leo IX was
born. He brought the conflict between Rome and the eastern Church to
a head in 1054, ending with the Patriarch of Constantinople being
excommunicated and the creation of the Schism.
(Camelot, 6/21/99)

1044 The Romans drove Pope
Benedict IX out of Rome for a 2nd time. John, bishop of Sabina, was
set up as Pope Sylvester III, but Benedict’s family base from
Tusculum fought their way back into Rome and restored Benedict.
(PTA, 1980, p.292)

1045 Pope Benedict IX abdicated
and, for a large sum of money, turned the papacy over to his
godfather, archpriest John Gratian, who became Pope Gregory VI.
(PTA, 1980, p.292)

1054 Jul, The Council of
Florence in 1445 established this date for the Great Schism between
the Eastern and Western (Orthodox and Catholic). An official date
was needed so that talks could begin on reunion.
(WSJ, 7/16/97, p.A23)

1054 The Roman and Orthodox
Churches split decisively. [see 330CE] The Orthodox Church did not
accept the papal authority from Rome. Christians in southern Albania
were left under the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople and those
in the north under the pope in Rome. The Orthodox Church maintained
the tradition of married priests.
(WSJ, 11/14/95, p. A-12)(WP, 6/29/96, p.B7)(www,
Albania, 1998)(SFC, 3/16/02, p.A3)

1058 Despite protests from the
cardinals Count Gregory of Tusculum led the selection of John,
bishop of Velletri, as Pope Benedict X.
(PTA, 1980, p.306)

1059 A council gathered at
Lateran and declared that the election of Benedict X was invalid.
The council enthroned Gerard of Burgundy as Pope Nicholas II. A
synod at Rome followed and set decrees for papal elections that
rested election powers with the cardinal-bishops.
(PTA, 1980, p.306)

1059 Richard of Aversa and his
brother-in-law, Robert Guiscard, met with Pope Nicholas II. The
Norman chiefs swore allegiance to the Pope in return for papal
recognition for their conquests, whereupon Richard was invested as
prince of Capua.
(HNQ, 7/17/00)

1073 Apr 22, Gregory VII, St.
Hildebrand, became Pope. He was later driven from Rome and died in
exile in 1085.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Gregory_VII)(WSJ, 3/10/99, p.A22)

1073 Apr 22, Gregory VII, St.
Hildebrand, became Pope. He was driven from Rome and died in exile
in 1085.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Gregory_VII)(WSJ, 3/10/99, p.A22)

1074 Pope Gregory VII summoned
a council in the Lateran palace, which condemned simony and
confirmed celibacy for the Church's clergy.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Gregory_VII)

1076 Feb 14, Pope Gregory VII
excommunicated Henry IV.
(MC, 2/14/02)

1077 Jan 28, Pope Gregory VII
pardoned German emperor Henry IV at Canossa in northern Italy. Henry
had insisted that he reserved the right to "invest" bishops and
other clergymen, despite the papal decree, but became penitent when
faced with permanent excommunication.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walk_to_Canossa)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.88)

1095 Nov 26, Pope Urban urged
the faithful to wrest the Holy Land from the Muslims, heralding
start of Crusades.
(AP, 11/26/02)

1095 Nov 27, In Clermont,
France, Pope Urbana II made an appeal for warriors to relieve
Jerusalem. He was responding to false rumors of atrocities in the
Holy Land. Pope Urban II called for a Christian army to defeat the
Turks and recapture the Holy Sepulchre from the Muslims. The first
Crusade sparked a renewal of trade between Europe and Asia.
(V.D.-H.K.p.109)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)(HN,
11/27/99)

1113 Feb 13, Pope Paschal II
issued a papal bull recognizing the Knights of Malta as independent
from bishops or secular authorities. The order traces had
establishment an infirmary in Jerusalem that cared for people of all
faiths making pilgrimages to the Holy Land.
(AP, 2/5/13)

1139 Apr 20, The Second Lateran
Council opened in Rome. The crossbow was outlawed in the 12th
century, at least against Christians, by the second Lateran council
(the 10th ecumenical council), called by Pope Innocent II. Capable
of piercing chain mail from a range of up to 1,000 feet, this
formidable missile weapon remained a fixture of technically-advanced
European armies throughout the Middle Ages. Although it was used
after the introduction of firearms, it was eventually succeeded by
the harquebus—a primitive gun—in the late 15th century. The council
attempted universal enforcement of priestly celibacy in the Roman
Catholic Church.
(HN, 4/20/98)(HN, 4/20/98)(HNQ, 12/5/00)(SFC,
3/16/02, p.A3)

1153 Mar 23, The first Treaty
of Constance was signed between Frederick I "Barbarossa" and Pope
Eugene III. By the terms of the treaty, the Emperor was to prevent
any action by Manuel I Komnenos to reestablish the Byzantine Empire
on Italian soil and to assist the pope against his enemies in revolt
in Rome.
(http://tinyurl.com/lxs2gzy)

1179 Pope Alexander III
established The Apostolic Penitentiary, or Tribunal of Conscience,
for sins considered so heinous by the Catholic Church that only the
Pope can grant absolution to those who perpetrate them.
(www.bishop-accountability.org/AbuseTracker/)(AP,
1/14/09)

1184 The first medieval
inquisition, the episcopal inquisition, was established by a papal
bull entitled Ad abolendam, "For the purpose of doing away with."
The inquisition was in response to the growing Catharist heresy in
southern France. It is called "episcopal" because it was
administered by local bishops, which in Latin is episcopus. In 2012
Cullen Murphy authored “God’s Jury: The Inquisition and the making
of the Modern World."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Inquisition)(SSFC, 2/5/12,
p.F7)

1198 Jan 8, Lotario de Conti di
Sengi became Pope Innocent III (d.1216). He raised the papacy to an
acme of papal prestige and power, and Christian Europe came close to
being a unified theocracy with no internal contradictions. He
oversaw 2 crusades and established fees for indulgences to fatten
the Church's treasury. He hired Italian merchant bankers to manage
papal funds and sanctioned the new Franciscan and Dominican orders.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Innocent_III)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R6)

1213 May 15, King John
submitted to the Pope, offering to make England and Ireland papal
fiefs. Pope Innocent III lifted the interdict of 1208. He named
Stephen Langton Archbishop of Canterbury.
(HN, 5/15/99)(MC, 5/15/02)

1215 Aug 24, Pope Innocent III,
following a request from King John, declared the Magna Carta
invalid. The barons of England soon retaliated by inviting King
Philip of France to come to England. Philip accepted the offer.
(MC, 8/24/02)(ON, 7/04, p.2)

1215 The 4th Lateran Council
announced that "Christ descended into Hell, rose again from the
dead, and ascended into Heaven. But he descended in soul, rose again
in the flesh, and ascended equally in both."
(WSJ, 4/18/03, p.W13)

1220 Nov 22, After promising to
go to the aid of the Fifth Crusade within nine months, German King
Frederick II was crowned emperor by Pope Honorius III.
(HN, 11/22/98)(PCh, 1992, p.106)

c1224/25-1274 Thomas Aquinas born in Aquino
between Rome and Naples. He was a pupil of the Benedictines in the
monastery of Monte Cassino. After nine years Emperor Frederic II
temporarily disbanded the monks at Cassino and Thomas went to Naples
to study and joined the Dominicans. He tried to reconcile theology
with the emerging economic conditions of his time.
(V.D.-H.K.p.119)(NH, 10/98, p.4)(WSJ, 1/11/99,
p.R20)

1227 Roman Emperor Frederick II
was first excommunicated by the Catholic Pope because his growing
empire threatened the independence of the papal states. [see 1239]
(AP, 5/5/06)

1228 St. Francis of Assisi,
founder of the Franciscan order, was canonized.
(AP, 10/3/97)

1231 Pope Gregory IX
established the Papal Inquisition to deal with heresy, although he
did not approve the use of torture as a tool of investigation or for
penance.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Gregory_IX)

1239 Roman Emperor Frederick II
was excommunicated a 2nd time because his growing empire threatened
the independence of the papal states.
(AP, 5/5/06)

1243-1254 Pope Innocent IV. He established canon
law that recognized communities such as cathedral chapters and
monasteries as legal individuals.
(WSJ, 12/23/99, p.A18)

1244 Oct 17, The Sixth Crusade
ended when an Egyptian-Khwarismian force almost annihilated the
Frankish army at Gaza.
(HN, 10/17/98)

c1244 Pope Innocent III
launched the Albigensian Crusade, a forerunner of the Inquisition,
that systematically besieged and exterminated the Cathars.
(SSFC, 6/17/01, p.T10)

1245 Thomas Aquinas was sent to
Paris where he enrolled as a student of Albertus Magnus to study
theology, philosophy, and history. In 1974 Michael R. Best and Frank
H. Brightman edited "The Book of secrets of Albertus Magnus," which
contained a recipe for Greek Fire.
(V.D.-H.K.p.119)(AM, May/Jun 97 p.10)

1246 Khan Guyuk sent a letter
to the Vatican from Karakorum, the capital of the Mongol empire. The
letter was retained in the Vatican archive and made available to the
public in 2010.
(Econ, 5/1/10,
p.87)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karakorum)

1251 Mindaugas of Lithuania
accepted Christianity with his wife, 2 sons, about 600 of his
nobility and many of his people. An envoy was then sent to Rome to
request the Pope’s formal approval for coronation which was granted.
The German Order then worked closely with Mindaugas in establishing
the first Bishopric in Lithuania and were in turn granted lands in
western Lithuania (Zemaiciuose). Pope Innocent IV authorized
Mindaugas to be crowned King.
(H of L, 1931, p.30,32)(XXIA, 7/21/99)

1253 Aug, Pope Innocent IV,
after much worry about the order's insistence on absolute poverty,
finally approved the rule of the 2nd Order of the Franciscans, the
Poor Clares, founded by St. Clare of Assisi, the great friend of St
Francis.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Innocent_IV)

1255 Mar 6, Pope
Alexander IV permitted Mindaugas to crown his son as king of
Lithuania.
(LHC, 3/6/03)

1256 Thomas Aquinas received
his license to teach. He became involved in the current questions of
doctrine on two basic issues. He sided with the Nominalists as
opposed to the Realists on the question of "universals". The second
issue was based on Aristotle's notion of nature. Aquinas saw a
distinction between spirit and nature but also a unity.
(V.D.-H.K.p.121)

1260-1390 Carbon-14 dating techniques in 1988
determined that the cloth of the Shroud of Turin dated to this
period. E.T. Hall (d.2001 at 77) of Oxford Univ. led the testing,
which was later held in question. In 1978 Walter C. McCrone
(d.2002), chemical analyst, determined that the image was painted on
the cloth some 1300 years after the crucifixion of Christ.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.A24)(SFC, 8/22/01, p.D2)(SFC,
7/29/02, p.B5)

1266 St. Thomas Aquinas penned
his "Summa Theologica," in which he attempted to reconcile theology
with economic conditions. He argued that reason could operate within
faith.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)(WSJ, 6/22/99, p.A22)

1274 Thomas Aquinas was
summoned before a council at Lyons to answer for his opinions. He
was publicly chastised but not condemned.
(V.D.-H.K.p.122)

1294 Jul 5, Pietro di Murrone,
a pious hermit, was elected as Pope Celestine V. He was so besieged
by the political, social and religious challenges of the position
that just five months later, on December 13, he became the first
pope to resign, for which he was imprisoned by his successor,
Boniface VIII. He died in the castle of Fumone, May 19, 1296.
(SFEC, 10/22/00,
p.A20)(www.newadvent.org/cathen/03479b.htm)

1296 May 19, Pietro di Murrone,
former Pope Celestine V, died in the castle of Fumone, where he was
imprisoned by his successor, Boniface VIII.
(SFEC, 10/22/00,
p.A20)(www.newadvent.org/cathen/03479b.htm)

1300 Jan 1, A Jubilee Year, the
symbolic moment for Dante's Divine Comedy. It marked the end of the
Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance. Pope Boniface VIII
had issued a Papal Bull that declared a Rome Holy Year, "Giubileo."
The event was such a success that papal gendarmes had to execute
several dozen people to bring the crowds under control. Pope
Bonifacius VIII introduced Jubilee indulgences.
(V.D.-H.K.p.123)(WSJ, 4/2/97, p.A12)(WSJ,
1/13/00, p.A1)

1307 Oct 13, French king Philip
IV convicted the Knights Templar of heresy. Members of the Knights
of Templar were arrested throughout France, imprisoned and tortured
by the order of the King Philip the Fair. Papal hearings convened
after King Philip IV of France arrested and tortured Templar leaders
under charges of heresy and immorality.
(HN, 10/13/98)(AP, 10/12/07)

1308 The "Parchment of Chinon"
contained the decision by Pope Clement V to save the Templars and
their order. The document was misplaced for centuries in the
archives and found again by researchers in 2001. In 2007 it was
published as part of the Vatican’s secret archive documents about
the trial of the Knights Templar.
(AP, 10/12/07)

1311 Oct 16, The general
Council of Vienne opened just south of Lyons. During the 2-year
council Pope Clement V made the belief in the right to usury heresy
and abolished all secular legislation which allowed it.
(Econ, 1/7/12,
p.60)(www.dailycatholic.org/history/15ecume1.htm)

1312 The Knights Templar were
suppressed by Pope Clement at the Council of Vienna. Pressured by
King Philip of France, Pope Clement reversed his 1308 decision and
suppressed the order.
(AHD, 1971, p.724)(SC, Internet, 5/12/97)(AP,
10/12/07)

1414 Nov 16, A council of
bishops opened in Constance Germany under Emp. Sigismund. When the
council of Constance opened, Christians owed obedience to three
different popes: Gregory XII of the Roman party, Benedict XIII of
the Avignon party, and John XXIII, who had been elected after the
death of Alexander V. John XXIII and Benedict XIII were deposed by
the council, and Gregory XII voluntarily resigned. Then Martin V was
elected pope on 11 November 1417 and he was regarded as the
legitimate pontiff by the church as a whole.
(www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/CONSTANC.HTM)(WUD,
1994 p.313)

1415 Jul 4, Pope Gregory XII
(1326-1417), born Angelo Correr or Corraro, stepped down in a deal
to end the Great Western Schism among competing papal claimants.
(AP, 2/11/13)(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Gregory_XII)

1417 Nov 11, Martin V was
elected pope and was regarded as the legitimate pontiff by the
church as a whole.
(www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/CONSTANC.HTM)

1420 Mar 1, Pope Martinus I
(1417-1431) called for a crusade against the Hussieten (Bohemia).
(SC, 3/1/02)(PTA, 1980, p.408)

1423 May 23, Benedict XIII,
[Pedro the Luna], Spanish Pope (1394-1423), died. He had been
elected by the Avignon cardinals during the Great Western Schism.
(MC, 5/23/02)(PTA, 1980, p.402)

1431 Jan 1, Rodrigo Borgia
Lanzol (d.1503), member of the Borgia family, was born in Xativa,
Spain. His mother was the sister of Pope Calixtus III. He was
elected Pope Alexander VI in 1492 and amassed a fortune by pocketing
church funds. His reign helped inspire the Protestant reformation.
He fathered numerous children including Lucrezia Borgia. Machiavelli
based "The Prince" on him.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)(PTA, 1980, 424)

1445 The Council of Florence
ended. It established the date for the Great Schism between the
Eastern and Western (Orthodox and Catholic) churches as July, 1054.
An official date was needed so that talks could begin on reunion.
(WSJ, 7/16/97, p.A23)

1451 The Vatican Library was
founded.
(WSJ, 3/2/00, p.W10)

1455 Jan 8, The Romanus
Pontifex, a papal bull, was written by Pope Nicholas V to King
Afonso V of Portugal. As a follow-up to the Dum Diversas, it
confirmed to the Crown of Portugal dominion over all lands
discovered or conquered during the Age of Discovery.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanus_Pontifex)

1475 Cesare Borgia,
illegitimate son of Rodrigo Borgia Lanzol, later Pope Alexander VI
(1492-1503), was born. He was made a church cardinal before his 20th
birthday.
(PTA, 1980, p.424)(SFC, 3/16/02, p.A3)

1475 Pope Sixtus IV celebrated
the Holy Year by building the Sistine Chapel and the Sixtus Bridge
over the Tiber River.
(SFC, 12/24/99, p.A15)

1483 Aug 9, Pope Sixtus IV
celebrated the first mass in the Sistine Chapel, which was named in
his honor.
(HN, 8/9/98)

1483 Felice della Rovere
(d.1536), illegitimate daughter of Pope Julius II (r.1503-1513), was
born about this time. Her mother was a member of the Normanni, an
illustrious Roman family long in decline. In 2005 Caroline P. Murphy
authored “The Pope’s Daughter: The Extraordinary Life of Felice
della Rovere."
(www.jsonline.com/enter/books/reviews/jul05/339335.asp)

1484 Aug 12, Pope Sixtus IV
died. His rule was marked by nepotism and he was involved in a
conspiracy to overthrow the Medici in Florence.
(PTA, 1980, p.98)

1484 Dec 5, Pope Innocent VIII
issued a bull deploring the spread of witchcraft and heresy in
Germany. He ordered that all cats belonging to witches scheduled to
be burned, be also burned. Kraemer and Sprenger, two Dominican
friars, had induced Pope Innocent VIII to issue a bull authorizing
them to extirpate witchcraft in Germany.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, zone 1 p.2)(HN, 12/5/98)(HNQ,
10/31/99)

1486 Heinrich Kraemer and
Johann Sprenger, Dominican friars, published Malleus melefircarum
(The Witches‘ Hammer), which became the authoritative encyclopedia
of demonology throughout Christendom. The authority of their work,
which was a synthesis of folk beliefs that had until then been
manifested in local outbursts of witch finding, lasted through the
European witch craze of the next three centuries.
(HNQ, 10/31/99)

1487 Lorenzo the Magnificent
ordered a giraffe from Africa and a cardinal’s hat for his
13-year-old son from Pope Innocent VIII. In return for the hat
Lorenzo promised the hand of his eldest daughter for the Pope’s
illegitimate son along with a nice loan. The giraffe was procured
from Sultan Qaitbay, the Ottoman ruler of Egypt. Pope Innocent
promised to get Queen Anne of France to hand over Djem, the exiled
brother of Qaitbay, for use as a pawn. Lorenzo promised to give the
giraffe to Anne. In 2006 the story was covered by Marina
Belozerskaya in her book “The Medici Giraffe."
(WSJ, 8/19/06, p.P9)

1492 Aug 11, Cardinal Rodrigo
Borgia Lanzol (61), father of Cesare and Lucretia, became Pope
Alexander VI (d.1503). He siphoned off untold riches from Church
funds. Borgia arrived in Rome from Spain in 1449 and Italianized his
name from Borja to Borgia. His rise in the church was helped a great
deal when his uncle became Pope Calixtus III.
(HN, 8/10/98)(PTA, p.424)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R4)(MC,
8/11/02)

1493 May 3-1493 May 4, Pope
Alexander VI issued 3 papal bulls that divided the discoveries of
Columbus between Spain and Portugal. By the Bulls of May 3 and 4 he
drew an imaginary line one hundred leagues west of the Cape Verde
Islands. The May 4 Bull, “Inter Caetera," was amended in Sep.
granting Spain the right to hold lands to the “western regions and
to India." The Patronata Real granted the Spanish throne the
privilege and duty of overseeing propagation of Christianity among
Spain’s subjects in the New World.
(DAH, 1946,
p.2)(www.kwabs.com/bull_of_1493.html)(SFC, 3/5/11, p.E3)

1495 Jan 28, Pope Alexander VI
gave his son Cesare Borgia as hostage to Charles VIII of France.
(MC, 1/28/02)

1497 May 13, Pope Alexander VI
excommunicated Girolamo Savonarola for heresy. In Florence the
Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498) had led the burning
of musical instruments, books and priceless works of art. He
preached against corruption in the Church and civil government.
(Hem., 4/97, p.53)(WUD, 1994, p.1672)(MC,
5/13/02)

1498 Aug 17, French King Louis
XII made Cesare Borgia (1475-1507) the Duke of Valentinois. Borgia
resigned his position as cardinal, which had been bestowed on him at
age 18 by his father, Pope Alexander VI.
(Econ, 8/16/08,
p.16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Borgia)

1503 Aug 18, Pope Alexander VI
(1492-1503), born in Spain as Rodrigo di Borgia (1431), died.
He had recently authorized the building of a prison in the cellars
of Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome.
(PTA,
p.424)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Alexander_VI)(SSFC,
7/22/07, p.G2)

1506 Pope Julius II placed the
1st stone for the new St. Peter’s Basilica. Bramante began to
rebuild St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, which had been neglected
since the 14th century when the popes resided at Avignon. Pope Urban
VIII consecrated it in 1626.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.9)(SSFC, 2/18/07, p.A2)

1507 Pope Julius II announced
an indulgence for the re-building of St. Peter’s.
(TL-MB, p.9)

1511 Sep 1, Council of Pisa
opened. Louis XII of France called the council to oppose the Holy
League of Pope Julius II.
(PTA, 1980, p.432)(MC, 9/1/02)

1511 Raphael completed the
frescoes in the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican for Pope
Julius II.
(TL-MB, p.10)

1511 Pope Julius joined the
Holy League with Aragon and Venice against the French. Papal forces
captured Modena and Mirandola from the French.
(TL-MB, p.10)

1512 Nov 1, Michelangelo's
paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel were completed and
first exhibited to the public.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.10)(AP, 11/1/97)(HN, 11/1/98)

1513 Feb 20-1513 Feb 21, Pope
Julius II (1503-1513), born as Giuliano della Rovere (1443), died.
He was laid in rest in a huge tomb sculptured by Michelangelo. He
had been a patron of Michelangelo, Bramante, and Raphael.
(www.newadvent.org/cathen/08562a.htm)

1520 The funereal monuments of
the Medici Chapel were commissioned by Pope Clement VII. They were
done primarily by Michelangelo (1475-1564) from 1520 to 1534, being
completed by his students after his departure. The four
figures—dawn, day, dusk and night—are considered among the
sculptor‘s most accomplished work. He left Florence in 1534, hoping
to return, but spent his last years in Rome.
(HNQ, 11/15/00)

1521 Apr 17, Under the
protection of Frederick the Wise, elector of Saxony, Martin Luther
first appeared before Charles V and the Imperial Diet to face
charges stemming from his religious writings. The Roman Catholic
Church had already excommunicated him on Jan 3, 1521.
(NH, 9/96, p.18)(HN, 4/17/98)(AP, 4/17/05)

1521 Oct 11, Pope Leo X titled
King Henry VIII of England "Defender of the Faith" in recognition of
his writings in support of the Catholic Church. Henry had penned a
defense of the seven Catholic Sacraments in response to Martin
Luther‘s Protestant reform movement. By 1534, Henry had broken
completely with the Catholic Church, and the Pope‘s authority in
England was abolished.
(TL-MB, p.12)(HNQ, 8/12/00)(MC, 10/11/01)

1522 Adrian VI was elected
Pope. He was the last non-Italian pope until John Paul II.
(TL-MB, p.12)

1527 May 6, German and Spanish
troops under Charles V began sacking Rome, bringing about the end of
the Renaissance. Libraries were destroyed, Pope Clement VII
was captured and thousands were killed. 147 of 189 of the Pope’s
Swiss guard were killed.
(HN, 5/6/02)(PCh, 1992, p.174)(WSJ, 4/14/06,
p.W5)

1527 Dec 6, Giulio di Giuliano
de' Medici (1478-1534) as Pope Clemens VII (1523-1534) fled to
Orvieto in Umbria. In order to ensure a water supply Pope Clemens
VII had a well dug by architect-engineer Antonio da Sangallo the
Younger of Florence. St. Patrick’s Well was 45 feet wide with 496
steps leading down 175 feet.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Clement_VII)(SSFC, 12/29/13,
p.P5) (MC, 12/6/01)

1527 Florence expelled the
Medici nephews of the Pope and reverted to a republic.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.13)

1527 Spanish mercenaries paid
by Charles V sacked Rome and left 4,000 dead. Some see this event as
marking the close of the Renaissance.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.13)

1527-1528 Henry VIII imprisoned Pope Clement VII
for disobedience. It was to Clement that Henry appealed for an
annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, which had been
granted under special dispensation in the first place.
(V.D.-H.K.p.163)

1530 Feb 23, Spain's Carlos I
was crowned Holy Roman Emperor Charles V by Pope Clement VII in the
last coronation of a German king by a Pope. Charles restored the
Medici to power after capturing Florence and ceded Malta to the
landless religious order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem.
(TL-MB, p.14)(MC, 2/24/02)(PC, 1992, p.176)

1530 Mar 7, King Henry VIII's
divorce request was denied by the Pope. Henry then declared that he,
not the Pope, is supreme head of England's church.
(MC, 3/7/02)

1531 Dec 12, Legend held that a
dark-skinned Virgin Mary appeared to a peasant outside Mexico City
and left an imprint on his cactus-fiber poncho. The poncho became an
icon for the Virgin of Guadalupe. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, an
Indian peasant, had visions of the Virgin Mary. In 2002 Pope John
Paul II planned to canonize him. The Vatican’s main source was a
religious work that dated to 1666.
(SFC, 2/1/99, p.A9)(WSJ, 2/27/02, p.A1)(WSJ,
4/17/02, p.A1)(AP, 7/30/02)

1532 Mar 18, English parliament
banned payments by English church to Rome.
(MC, 3/18/02)

1534 Pope Paul III (1534-1549),
Alessandro Farnese, confirmed "The Last Judgement" commission to
Michelangelo, who settled in Rome and began to work on the immense
painting on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.14)(OG)(Econ, 12/13/03, p.82)

1534 St. Ignatius of Loyola,
Spanish ecclesiastic, founded the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in
Paris with the aim of defending Catholicism against heresy and
undertaking missionary work. Ignatius converted to Christianity
while convalescing after a battle and wrote his Spiritual Exercises
meant as a guide for conversion. In Paris, Ignatius and a small
group of men took vows of poverty, chastity and papal obedience.
Ignatius formally organized the order in 1539 that was approved by
the pope in 1540. The society‘s rapid growth and emphasis on
scholarship aided in the resurgence of Catholicism during the
Counter-Reformation. The Jesuits were also active in missionary work
in Asia, Africa and the Americas.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.14)(HNQ, 1/13/01)

1538 Benvenuto Cellini,
Florentine artist, was imprisoned for about a year in the dungeon
beneath the papal fortress of Castel Sant’Angelo for killing his
brother’s murderer.
(SSFC, 7/22/07, p.G2)

1540 Sep 27, The Society of
Jesus, a religious order under Ignatius Loyola, was approved by the
Pope. The Jesuits were recognized by Pope Paul III. They were to
become the chief agents of the Church of Rome in spreading the
Counter-Reformation.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.16)(HN, 9/27/98)

1541 Oct 31, "The Last
Judgement" by Michelangelo on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel
at Rome was officially unveiled. It is one of the largest paintings
in the world.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.16)(OG)

1542 Jul 21, Pope Paul III
launched the Inquisition against Protestants (Sanctum
Officium). Alleged heretics were tried and tortured in an effort to
stem the spread of the Reformation.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.16)(MC, 7/21/02)

1545 Dec 13, The Church Council
of Trent began with the meeting of 30 bishops. It lasted 3 years but
took 18 years to complete its work. The Council sparked the
beginning of the Counter-Reformation. [see 1562]
(CU, 6/87)(TL-MB, 1988, p.17)

1546 Pope Paul III put
Michelangelo (71) in charge of the restoration of St. Peter’s
Basilica in Rome. He designed the dome of St. Peter’s.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.17)(SSFC, 2/18/07, p.A2)

1549 Sep 13, Pope Paul III
closed the first session of the Council of Bologna.
(HN, 9/13/98)

1549 Nov 10, Pope Paul III,
born as Alessandro Farnese (b.1468), died. He was Pope of the Roman
Catholic Church from 1534 to his death.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Paul_III)

1550 Apr 28, Powers of Dutch
inquisition were extended.
(MC, 4/28/02)

1550 Michelangelo completed the
frescoes of the Cappella Paolina, "the Conversion of Paul" and "The
Crucifixion of St. Peter."
(OG)

1567 The Catholic Church
outlawed the outright sale of indulgences.
(WSJ, 1/13/00, p.A1)

1568 Feb 16, A sentence of the
Holy Office condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to
death as heretics. From this universal doom only a few persons,
especially named, were acquitted.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighty_Years%27_War)

1568 In Rome Aonio Paleario,
poet and protestant-style reformer, was burned at the stake by Pius
V for posting a poem on a statue, a practice that was called the
"talking statue" (Pasquino): "You’d think it was winter – the way
Pius is burning Christians, - like so many logs on the fire. – He
must be getting himself ready – to enjoy the flames of Hell.
(WSJ, 5/3/01, p.A16)

1582 Feb 24, Pope Gregory XIII
issued a papal bull, or edict, outlining his calendar reforms. The
old Julian Calendar had an error rate of one day in every 128 years.
This was corrected in the Gregorian Calendar of Pope Gregory XIII,
but Protestant countries did not accept the change till 1700 and
later. [see 1552 and Oct 4, 1582]
(HFA, '96, p.22)(TL-MB, 1988, p.23)(HN,
6/7/98)(SFEC, 2/20/00, Par p.7)(AP, 2/24/02)

1582 Aug, Mateo Ricci
(1552-1610), a Jesuit priest, arrived in Macao. He mastered Chinese
and went on to establish an influential Jesuit mission and in 1601
became an advisor to the emperor. He was later accused of "going
native," and ignoring his mandate to spread the faith. His
1602 map of the world in Chinese characters introduced the findings
of European exploration to East Asia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matteo_Ricci)(WSJ,
9/4/98, p.W12)(Econ, 8/23/14, p.36)

1582 Oct 4, The Church Council
at Trent, Italy, discussed the error of 10 days in the calendar as
referenced to the spring equinox which was used to establish the
date for Easter. Pope Gregory XIII announced a correction, "The
Gregorian Adjustment," and had Oct. 4 followed by Oct. 15. The
calendar is accurate to a day in 3,323 years.
(K.I.-365D, p.97)(NG, March 1990, J. Boslough)

1585 Sep 9, Pope Sixtus V
deprived Henry of Navarre of his rights to the French crown.
(HN, 9/9/98)

1585 An obelisk that had been
brought from Egypt to Rome by the emperor Caligula was erected at
the Vatican.
(RFH-MDHP, p.213, illustration)

1586 The Lateran Church of St.
John, Rome, was rebuilt on the orders of Pope Sixtus V, who
succeeded the late Gregory XIII.
(TL-MB, p.24)

1587 Pope Sixtus V proclaimed a
Catholic crusade for the invasion of England. Philip II prepared an
invasion fleet but was interrupted by Francis Drake, who "singed the
king’s beard" by burning 10,000 tons of shipping in Cadiz harbor.
(TL-MB, p.24)

1588 Domenico Fontana, Italian
architect and engineer, completed the Vatican library in Rome. He
also completed the cupola and lantern of St. Peter’s in Rome.
(TL-MB, p.24)

1593 Michel Mercatus, physician
to Pope Clement VIII, died. He left manuscripts on his study of
Ceraunia, or ancient stone tools which had been thought to be rocks
hurled down from the sky by lightning bolts, or rocks struck by
lightning.
(RFH-MDHP, p.70)

1600 Cardinal Filippo Spinelli,
Pope Clement VIII’s ambassador in Prague, wrote to the Pope that
Emperor Rudolf II was bewitched by the devil.
(WSJ, 9/9/06, p.P9)

1605 Pope Paul V (d.1621) was
elected following Clement VIII. After 2 months he elevated his young
law-student nephew, Scipione Borghese, to the office of cardinal.
(WSJ, 9/15/98, p.A20)(WSJ, 2/8/00, p.A20)

1606 Venice expelled the
Jesuits as part of a larger jurisdictional dispute with the Vatican.
(WSJ, 5/5/07, p.P10)

1616 Mar 5, The Catholic
Church’s Congregation of the Index banned Catholics from reading “On
the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres" (1543) by Nicholas
Copernicus. “De Revolutionibus" was not formally banned but merely
withdrawn from circulation, pending "corrections." The prohibition
was officially lifted in 1835.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_revolutionibus_orbium_coelestium)

1616 Galileo was forbidden from
continuing his scientific work by the Roman Catholic Church.
(NG, March 1990, p. 117)

1617 Aug 30, Rosa de Lima of
Peru became the first American saint to be canonized.
(HN, 8/30/98)

1621-1623 Gregory XV served as pope.
(WSJ, 2/8/00, p.A20)

1622 Mar 12, Ignatius of Loyola
(founder of the Jesuits) was declared a saint.
(MC, 3/12/02)

1657 Pope Alexander VII
entrusted Italian Baroque master Gian Lorenzo Bernini with building
the colonnade surrounding St. Peter’s Square. A restoration project
was lauched in 2009. In 2012 the Vatican sought funds directly from
pilgrims, stamp collectors and tourists to pay for the ambitious
restoration.
(AP, 11/27/12)
1657 Venice re-admitted the
Jesuits ushering in a period of cultural conservatism that marked
the end of the “Renaissance project."
(WSJ, 5/5/07, p.P10)

1683 Sep 12, A combined
Austrian and Polish army defeated the Ottoman Turks at Kahlenberg
and lifted the siege on Vienna, Austria. Prince Eugene of Savoy
helped repel an invasion of Vienna, Austria, by Turkish forces.
Marco d'Aviano, sent by Pope Innocent XI to unite the outnumbered
Christian troops, spurred them to victory. The Turks left behind
sacks of coffee which the Christians found too bitter, so they
sweetened it with honey and milk and named the drink cappuccino
after the Capuchin order of monks to which d'Aviano belonged. An
Austrian baker created a crescent-shaped roll, the Kipfel, to
celebrate the victory. Empress Maria Theresa later took it to France
where it became the croissant. In 2006 John Stoye authored “The
Siege of Vienna."
(Hem., Dec. '95, p.69)(WSJ, 3/27/96, p.A-16)(HN,
9/12/98)(SFEC, 2/6/00, p.A1)(Reuters, 4/28/03)(WSJ, 6/3/03, p.D5)
(WSJ, 12/6/06, p.D12)

1731 May 28, All Hebrew books
in Papal State were confiscated.
(MC, 5/28/02)

1742 Jul 11, A papal decree was
issued condemning the disciplining actions of the Jesuits in China.
(HN, 7/11/98)

1752 Mar 23, Pope Stephen II
was elected to succeed Zacharias. He died 2 days later.
(MC, 3/23/02)

1758 Pope Benedict XIV removed
the blanket proscription against the works of Copernicus from the
Index of Forbidden Books. He left Galileo on the Index because a
Pope had participated in the condemnation of Galileo.
(WSJ, 10/22/99, p.W15)

1773 Jul 21, Pope Clement XIV
abolished the Jesuit order. He disbanded, defrocked, and stripped
them of their sustenance. They were ignored by other orders and
denounced as schemers and plotters. The Jesuits finally regained
respectability in 1814after flourishing underground.
(HN, 7/21/98)(MC, 7/21/02)

1797 Gammarelli was founded
under Pope Pius VI as tailors to the clergy.
(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.I4)

1798 Feb 20, Pope Pius VI fled
Rome to Siena following an invasion of French forces. He was later
arrested and deported 1st to Florence and then to France.
(www.zum.de/whkmla/region/italy/papalstate17891799.html)(WSJ,
4/14/06, p.W5)

1801 Jul 15, Pope Pius VII and
Napoleon signed the Concordat of 1801 brokering religious peace with
Rome and granting equality to Jews. It solidified the Roman Catholic
Church as the majority church of France and brought back most of its
civil status.
(Econ, 10/18/14,
p.18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordat_of_1801)

1804 Dec 2, Napoleon was
crowned emperor of France with Josephine as Empress as Pope Pius VII
looked on. In 1807 Jacques-Louis David completed his painting of the
event.
(AP, 12/2/97)(WSJ, 12/14/04, p.D10)

1805 Prussia sent Baron Wilhelm
von Humboldt as envoy to the Vatican, the first Protestant state to
do so.
(Econ, 7/21/07, p.59)

1835 The Vatican removed “On
the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres" (1543) by Nicholas
Copernicus from its list of banned books.
(www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article7134341.ece)

1846-1878 Pope Pius IX, Giovanni Mastai-Ferretti,
allowed archeological excavations of the catacombs by G.B. de Rossi.
Under Pius IX the child Edgardo Mortara was taken from the Jewish
merchant, Momolo Mortara, in Bologna and raised as a foster son of
the pope. The 6-year-old boy had been baptized by a Catholic servant
and canonical law did not allow that he be raised by his Jewish
parents. The story is told by David I. Kertzer in his 1997 book:
"The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara."
(ITV, 1/96, p.58)(SFEC, 8/31/97, BR p.9)(PTA,
1980, p.510)

1848 Count Pellegrino, the
prime minister for Pope Pius IX, was stabbed and killed during the
unrest leading to the unification of Italy.
(USAT, 5/6/98, p.6A)

1850 Jun 11, Cardinal Franzoni
told Rev. Joseph Sadoc Alemany, a Dominican missionary who had
worked in the Midwest frontier, that he was appointed the new bishop
of Monterey, Ca.
(SSFC, 7/27/03, p.A22)

1854 Dec 8, Pope Pius IX
proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. In an encyclical
he stated that: "The Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment
of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty
God… Preserved immune from all stain of original sin. Ineffabilis
Deus."
(AP, 12/8/97)(PTA, 1980, p.510)(WSJ, 6/3/99,
p.A27)

1854 Archeologist G.B. de
Rossi, while excavating the Christian catacombs discovered a
marble-pillored chamber filled with rubble and fragments of
inscriptions suggesting the burial of several early Popes.
(ITV, 1/96, p.60)

1858 Papal police took Edgardo
Mortara (6), a Jewish boy, from the arms of his father after a
Catholic housemaid claimed to have baptized the boy during an
illness. Edgardo grew up a church ward and later became a priest.
(SFC, 9/1/00, p.D4)

1861 The L’Osservatore Romano
newspaper was founded as the mouthpiece for the Vatican.
(WSJ, 10/13/08, p.A16)

1864 Pope Pius IX issued the
encyclical "Quanta cura," which included a syllabus of 70 errors in
contemporary beliefs. The Syllabus of Errors included 80 negative
points condemning modern ideas such as freedom of speech and
religion and separation of church and state.
(PTA, 1980, p.510)(SFC, 9/1/00, p.D4)

1867 The Vatican distrusted the
Oxford Movement atmosphere sufficiently to issue a decree forbidding
Catholics to attend Oxford University. This was not relaxed until
1895.
(http://archives.balliol.ox.ac.uk/Exhibitions/exhib09.asp)

1870 Jul 18, Pontifical
infallibility was proclaimed at the Vatican Council. It proclaimed
as dogma that the Pope when speaking ex cathedra can make no mistake
in solemn declarations of what must be believed in matters of faith
and morals. The 20th ecumenical council, soon adjourned due to the
outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War.
(PTA, 1980, p.510)(MC, 7/18/02)

1870 Sep 20, Italian troops
took control of the Papal States, leading to the unification of
Italy.
(WSJ, 9/13/96, p.A6)(SFEM, 1/19/96, p.10)(AP,
9/20/97)

1870 Oct 2, The papal states
voted in favor of union with Italy. The capital was moved from
Florence to Rome.
(HN, 10/2/98)

1870 The abolition of the Papal
States freed the Jews from restrictions in Rome’s ghetto.
(SFC, 9/1/00, p.D4)

1878 Pope Leo XIII prohibited
the hiring of new castrati by the church: only in the Sistine Chapel
and in other papal basilicas in Rome did a few castrati linger.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castrato)

1896 Sep 15, Pope Leo XIII
issued a papal bull titled Apostolicae Curae, declaring all Anglican
ordinations to be "absolutely null and utterly void". The Anglican
Archbishops of Canterbury and York of the Church of England
responded to the papal charges with the encyclical Saepius Officio
in 1897.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolicae_Curae)

1896 A Catholic Chaplaincy was
established at Britain’s Oxford University.
(Econ, 9/4/10,
p.57)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_University_Newman_Society)

1917 May 13, Three peasant
children near Fatima, Portugal, reported seeing a vision of the
Virgin Mary. Francisco and Jacinta Marto and Lucia de Santos
reported appearances later reported 5 more occasions. In 2000 the
Vatican disclosed that the so-called third Secret of Fatima was a
vision of an attempt to kill a pope. It was associated to the May
13, 1981, assassination attempt. The 1st secret foretold the end of
World War I. The 2nd predicted the spread and collapse of Communism
and the conversion of Russia.
(AP, 5/13/97)(SFC, 5/14/00, p.A2)

1917 Jul 13, Three peasant
children near Fatima, Portugal, reported seeing a vision of the
Virgin Mary. In 2000 the Vatican unveiled the 62-line handwritten
account of Lucia de Jesus dos Santos from the Fatima, Portugal. [see
May 13]
(SFC, 6/27/00, p.A12)

1917 The silent opera film
"Thais" by Mary Garden was the first movie shown at the Vatican.
(WSJ, 3/19/98, p.A16)

1917 The Catholic Church’s Code
of Canon Law of this year stated that “An ecumenical council enjoys
supreme power over the universal church.
(WSJ, 12/26/08, p.A11)

1920 May 18, Pope John Paul II
(d.2005) was born as Karol Jozef Wojtyla, in Wadowice, Poland. In
1978 he became the 264th Roman Catholic pope. He was the first
non-Italian Roman Catholic pope since the Renaissance and wrote the
international bestseller "Crossing the Threshold."
(SFC, 5/19/97, p.A13)(HN, 5/18/99)(SSFC, 4/3/05,
p.A12)

1929 Feb 11, The Lateran Treaty
was signed, with Italy recognizing the independence and sovereignty
of Vatican City. The Italian government, under dictator Benito
Mussolini, paid the Vatican $91.7 million for the papal lands it
seized in 1870. The Italian state agreed to supply water but the
disposal of waste was not specified. This became a big issue in
1999.
(SFEM, 1/19/96, p.10)(AP, 2/11/97)(WSJ, 12/3/99,
p.A1)(Econ, 7/12/14, p.68)

1929 Jun 7, The sovereign state
of Vatican City came into existence as copies of the Lateran Treaty
were exchanged in Rome.
(AP, 6/7/97)

1938 Jun, Pius XI commissioned
American Jesuit John Lafarge to write a new encyclical expressly
condemning Nazi anti-Semitism. Lafarge and others wrote "The Unity
of the Human Race." Pius XI died soon thereafter and it was never
published. In 1997 George Passelecq and Bernard Suchecky published:
"The Hidden Encyclical of Pius XI."
(WSJ, 5/8/97, p.A23)(SFEC, 9/7/97, BR p.4)

1939 Feb 10, Pope Pius XI died
in Rome. He was born in Desio, Italy, as Ambrogio Damiano Achille
Ratti. In 2014 David I. Kertzer authored The Pope and Mussolini: The
Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe."
(www.nndb.com/people/327/000088063/)(SSFC,
2/9/14, p.F5)

1941 In Mexico Rev. Marcial
Maciel founded the Legion of Christ, a conservative Roman Catholic
order to minister to the wealthy and multiply its beneficial impact
on society. In 1946 Pope Pius XII ordered Father Maciel to recruit
Latin American leaders. In 1997 8 men went public with allegations
of sexual abuse by Father Maciel dating to the 1940s and 1950s.
(WSJ, 1/21/06, p.A13)

1942 Mar, Japan established
relations with the Vatican, the 1st non-Christian state to do so.
The first ambassador's name was Ken Harada.
(Econ, 7/21/07,
p.59)(www.reformation.org/vatican-and-japan.html)

1942 Dec 25, Pius XII issued an
encyclical with a strong attack on Nazism but no explicit mention of
Jews.
(WSJ, 5/8/97, p.A23)

1943 Apr 30, Pius XII wrote a
letter to Bishop von Preysing of Berlin and referred to the
extermination of the Jews. His concluding thoughts stated:
"Unhappily in the present state of affairs, we can bring no help
other than our prayers."
(WSJ, 5/8/97, p.A23)

1943 May 18, In Croatia
Archbishop Stepinac urged Pius XII to take a firm position to hold
on "to its 240,000 converts." Eastern Orthodox practitioners had
converted to Catholicism to escape death camps.
(WSJ, 5/20/99, p.A21)

1943 Sep 10, German troops
occupied Rome and took over the protection of Vatican City.
(MC, 9/10/01)

1943 Sep 26, The Germans placed
an extortion on the Jews of Rome with an order to produce 50 kg of
gold within 2 days or face massive deportations. Pius XII offered to
loan the Jewish community 15 kg of gold with interest with repayment
within 4 years after the war. Rome’s Jews and citizens came up with
sufficient gold to make the Pope’s offer needless.
(WSJ, 5/8/97, p.A23)

1943 Oct 16, In Italy the Nazi
SS police and Waffen SS began rounding up the Jews of Rome. There
was an anti Jewish riot in Rome as the Jewish quarter was surrounded
by Nazis, and Jews were evacuated to Auschwitz. Pope Pius XII made
no public protest, though he did send some messages of disapproval
through intermediaries.
(WSJ, 10/18/99, p.A46)(MC, 10/16/01)

1945 A secret internal US
Treasury Dept. document, hidden for 50 years, revealed in 1997 that
the Vatican held some 200 million Swiss francs plundered from Serbs
and Jews by the Nazi puppet government of Croatia after WW II.
(SFC, 7/22/97, p.A8)

1946 Oct 23, A Vatican document
advised French church authorities on how to handle information
requests from Jewish officials, asking them not to put anything in
writing: “Children who have been baptized must not be entrusted to
institutions that cannot ensure their Christian education." The
document surfaced in 2004.
(SFC, 1/1/05, p.A12)

1948 Jun, In Rome Father Karol
Jozef Wojtyla, later Pope John Paul II, completed his thesis “The
Problems of Faith in the Works of St. John of the Cross" and earned
a doctorate in philosophy. In July he returned to Poland as an
assistant pastor at Niegowicd.
(SSFC, 4/3/05, p.A12)

1949 Jun 20, The Vatican, as a
counter measure, excommunicated all active supporters of Communism
in Czechoslovakia.
(EWH, 1968, p.1187)

1954 May 29, Pope Pius XII,
born as Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Pacelli (1876-1958), canonized Pope
Pius X, born as Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto (1835-1914). It was the
first canonization of a Pope since 1712.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_canonized_by_Pope_Pius_XII)

1957 Argentina signed a treaty
with the Vatican that created the post of military bishop.
(Econ, 4/2/05, p.34)

1958 Oct 9, Pope Pius XII died,
19 years after he was elevated to the papacy. In 1999 John Cornwell
published "Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII."
(WSJ, 4/25/97, p.A18)(AP, 10/9/97)(SFC, 9/7/99,
p.A4)

1958 Oct 28, The Roman Catholic
patriarch of Venice, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, was elected Pope,
taking the name John XXIII.
(AP, 10/28/97)

1960 It was reported that a
rule that required women to wear head coverings in churches was
repealed. No official statement to that effect was actually made.
(WSJ, 10/8/97,
p.A1)(www.catholicintl.com/qa/qa.htm)

1962 Oct 11, Pope John XXIII
convened the first session of the Roman Catholic Church's 21st
Ecumenical Council, also known as Vatican II, with a call for
Christian unity. This was the largest gathering of the Roman
Catholic hierarchy in history. Among delegate-observers were
representatives of major Protestant denominations, in itself a sign
of sweeping change. He declared its purpose to be "aggiornamento,"
an "updating" that would be a pastoral response to the needs of the
modern world. It allowed for vernacular languages in the Liturgy and
continued to 1965, when it published Gaudium et Spes, the Pastoral
Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.
(CU, 6/87)(AP, 10/11/97)(HN, 10/11/98)

1962-1965 Rev. Francis X. Murphy (d.2002) covered
the Vatican Council. In 1963 he published "Letters from Vatican
City: Vatican Council II." In 1968 he published "Vatican Council
II," a history of the council.
(SFC, 4/16/02, p.A18)

1963 Feb 20, Rolf Hochhuth's
"Der Stellvertreter" (The Representative) premiered in Berlin. The
work indicted Pope Pius XII for Nazi complicity during WW II. The
Catholic Church was outraged at the portrayal of Pius XII as a war
criminal. An English translation by Richard and Clara Winston was
published as “The Deputy: A Play," by Grove Press in 1964. In 2002
The Deputy was made into the film “Amen." by Costa Gavras.
(WSJ, 4/25/97,
p.A18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deputy)(Econ, 10/25/08,
p.73)

1967 Dec 23, President Johnson,
on his way home from a visit to Southeast Asia, held an
unprecedented meeting with Pope Paul VI at the Vatican.
(AP, 12/23/07)

1967 Robert Katz (d.2010 at
77), American writer and historian, authored "Death in Rome." It was
a meticulous reconstruction of an infamous 1944 Nazi massacre. A
subsequent movie based on it, called "Massacre in Rome," stirred
controversy because it suggested Pope Pius XII did not intervene to
stop the massacre even though he knew about the Nazis' plans.
(AP, 10/21/10)

1968 Aug 22, Pope Paul VI
arrived in Bogota, Colombia, for the start of the first papal visit
to Latin America.
(AP, 8/22/98)

1968 The Sant’Egidio community
was started in Rome by a high school student with ideals of prayer,
mission and solidarity wit the poor. By 2008 it had 60,000 members
in 70 countries and had become active in faith-based peacemaking.
(Econ, 7/5/08,
p.72)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_Sant'Egidio)

1969 The society of Society of
St. Pius X was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. It split from
Rome over its opposition to the liberalizing reforms of the Second
Vatican Council, which among other things introduced Mass in the
vernacular and revolutionized the church's relations with Jews. In
1988, the Vatican excommunicated Lefebvre and four of his bishops
after he consecrated them without papal consent.
(AP, 6/14/12)

1971 Sep 28, Cardinal Josef
Mindszenty (1892-1975) of Hungary, who had spent 15 years in refuge
in the US Embassy in Budapest, ended his exile and flew to Rome.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zsef_Mindszenty)

1978 Sep 28, Pope John Paul I
[Albino Luciano] died after 33 days as pope. He was found dead the
next day in his Vatican apartment.
(www.prose-n-poetry.com/display_work/10583/)(AP,
9/29/97)

1978 Oct 4, Funeral services
were held at the Vatican for Pope John Paul I.
(AP, 10/4/98)

1978 Oct 16, The College of
Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church chose Cardinal Wojtyla (58),
Archbishop of Cracow, to become Pope. He took the name John Paul II.
The first non-Italian since Adrian VI of Utrecht died in 1523.
(AP, 10/16/97)(HN, 10/16/98)

1979 Jun 2, Pope John Paul II,
formerly Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Warsaw, arrived in his native
Poland on the first visit by a pope to a Communist country.
(SFC, 11/20/96, p.C1)(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.D1)(AP,
6/2/97)

1979 Sep 29, John Paul II
became the first pope to visit Ireland as he arrived for a three-day
tour.
(AP, 9/29/99)

1979 Oct 1, Pope John Paul II
arrived in Boston for the start of a U.S. tour.
(AP, 10/1/99)

1979 Oct 6, Pope John Paul II,
on a week-long U.S. tour, became the first pontiff to visit the
White House, where he was received by President Carter.
(AP, 10/6/97)

1979 Oct 7, Pope John Paul II
concluded a week-long tour of the United States with a Mass on the
Mall in Washington.
(AP, 10/7/99)

1979 Nov 30, John Paul II,
while on a pilgrimage to Turkey, became the first pope in 1,000
years to attend an Orthodox mass.
(www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/travels/sub_index1979/trav_turkey.htm)

1980 May 2, Pope John Paul II
arrived Kinshasa for the centennial of Catholicism in Zaire and the
beginning of his African tour.
(SFC, 7/18/97,
p.A10)(http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id99.htm)

1980 May 4, Nine people were
killed at Kinshasa, Zaire (later the Democratic Republic of Congo)
during a stampede to attend mass given by Pope John Paul II.
(http://africanhistory.about.com/od/may/a/td0504.htm)

1980 May 30, Pope John Paul II,
formerly Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Warsaw, arrived in France on the
first visit by the head of the Roman Catholic Church since the early
19th century.
(AP, 5/30/97)

1980 Jul 9, In Brazil at least
3 and as many as 7 died in a stampede to see the Pope at a stadium
in Fortaleza.
(http://tinyurl.com/36kdnt)

1980 Pope John Paul II allowed
married Episcopal clergy to join the Catholic Church and serve as
priests.
(AP, 8/22/05)

1981 May 13, John Paul II was
shot and seriously wounded in St. Peter's Square by Turkish
assailant Mehmet Ali Agca. The shots hit the pope’s hand and
penetrated his abdomen. John Paul forgave Agca 4 days later. In 2006
an Italian report said the Soviet Union was behind the attempted
assassination.
(TMC, 1994, p.1981)(AP, 5/13/97)(SFC, 6/14/00,
p.A12)(AP, 3/2/06)

1981 Jun 3, Pope John Paul II
left a Rome hospital and returned to the Vatican three weeks after
the attempt on his life.
(AP, 6/3/97)

1981 Aug 14, Pope John Paul II
left a Rome hospital, three months after being wounded in an attempt
on his life.
(AP, 8/14/01)

1982 May 12, In Fatima,
Portugal, security guards overpowered a Spanish ex-priest armed with
a bayonet who was trying to reach Pope John Paul II. John Paul was
visiting to give thanks for surviving an assassination attempt on
May 13, 1981. Ultra-conservative Spanish priest, Juan Fernandez
Krohn, lunged at the pope with a dagger and was knocked to the
ground by police and arrested. The pope was wounded, but this was
not disclosed until 2008.
(AP,
10/12/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II)(Reuters,
10/15/08)

1982 May 28, Pope John Paul II
became the 1st Pontiff to visit Britain.
(www.popejohnpaulii.org.uk/)

1982 Jun 7, Pres. Reagan met
with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican and later with Queen Elizabeth
in England.
(www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/trvl/pres/12800.htm)

1982 Nov 16, A replica of the
original 1854 "Pope’s Stone," donated by the Vatican, was dedicated
at the Washington Monument. The original from Pope Pius IX, arrived
in October 1853. It was taken by force in 1854 by unknown men. The
common idea is that the men were part of a group called the
Know-Nothings.
(www.nps.gov/archive/wamo/memstone_564.htm)

1982 The Vatican named Opus Dei
a personal prelature, in recognition of its global presence of
priests and lay faithful who carry out the mission of promoting
holiness in ordinary life.
(AP, 6/14/12)
1982 The Vatican Bank, aka
Works for Religion (IOR), was involved in the collapse of Italy’s
Banko Ambrosiano.
(Econ, 7/12/14, p.67)

1983 Jan 1, Pope John Paul II
declared this year to be an extraordinary Holy Year to mark the
1,950th anniversary of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in
year 33.
(SFC, 12/24/99, p.A15)

1983 Jun 22, Emanuela Orlandi
(b.1968), the daughter of a Vatican messenger, disappeared after a
music lesson in Rome. She was 15 at the time. Her self-proclaimed
kidnappers demanded the release of Ali Agca, who wounded the Pope in
1981, for her freedom. They never offered any proof they had the
girl or that she was alive.
(AP,
1/10/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuela_Orlandi)

1983 Dec 11, Pope John Paul II
visited a Lutheran church in Rome, the first visit by a Roman
Catholic pontiff to a Protestant church in his own diocese.
(www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/1983/december/index.htm)

1983 The Vatican code to annul
marriages was revised under Canon 1095. It permitted annulment if it
could be proved beyond a reasonable doubt that at the time of their
marriage one or both spouses suffered from a "grave lack of
discretionary judgement" concerning their marriage obligations.
(WSJ, 9/11/98, p.W9)
1983 The Vatican abolished the
role of “devil’s advocate," who argued against prospective
sainthood.
(Econ, 1/25/14, p.56)

1984 Jan 10, The United States
and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations for the first
time in 117 years.
(AP, 1/10/98)(HN, 1/10/99)

1984 In a bank scandal the
Vatican paid $244 million for its part in the collapse of another
Italian bank.
(SFEM, 1/19/96, p.10)
1984 A commission of the Roman
Catholic Church, appointed by Pope John Paul II in 1980, concluded
that the Inquisition was in error in its 1632 condemnation of
Galileo‘s support of the Copernican Theory of the solar system. By
1611 Galileo had made a series of discoveries and observations with
his telescope that clearly confirmed the theory of Polish astronomer
Copernicus that the earth and planets revolved around the sun.
Controversy erupted when Galileo announced his support of
Copernicus, a theory in opposition to the accepted Church belief
that the sun and planets revolved around a stationary earth.
Galileo‘s 1632 publication of Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of
the World led to condemnation by the Inquisition, which forced him
to renounce his views and live under house arrest until his death in
1642 [see 1992].
(HNQ, 2/11/00)
1984 Pope John Paul II visited
South Korea and canonized over 100 martyrs executed from 1791-1888
during the Joseon Dynasty.
(SFC, 8/13/14, p.A7)

1985 Jan 27, Pope John Paul
said mass to one million in Venezuela.
(HN, 1/27/99)

1985 The Vatican suspended Rev.
Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann and three other dissident priests in
Nicaragua for defying a church ban on clergy holding government
jobs. Brockmann served as the Sandinista government’s foreign
minister from 1979-1990. In 2014 he was reinstated by Pope Francis.
(SFC, 8/5/14, p.A2)

1987 Apr 30, Pope John Paul II
began a five-day visit to West Germany.
(AP, 4/30/97)

1987 May 1, During a
visit to West Germany, Pope John Paul II beatified Edith Stein, a
Jewish-born Carmelite nun who was gassed in the Nazi concentration
camp at Auschwitz.
(AP, 5/1/97)

1987 May 4, Pope John Paul II
ended his five-day visit to West Germany with a call for religious
freedom in the Soviet bloc and praise for those who had opposed the
"mass hysteria and propaganda" of the Nazi era.
(AP, 5/4/97)

1987 Jun 25, Pope John Paul II
received Austrian President Kurt Waldheim at the Vatican, a meeting
fraught with controversy because of allegations that Waldheim had
hidden a Nazi past.
(AP, 6/25/97)

1987 Sep 1, After Jewish
leaders met with the Pope at Castel Gandolfo it was announced that a
document would be produced on the Holocaust. The document was made
public Mar 16, 1998.
(SFEC, 3/15/98, p.A24)

1987 Sep 16, Pope John Paul II
visited San Francisco and drew the largest protests of his US tour
as homosexuals, feminists and Jews protested outside Mission Dolores
Basilica.
(SSFC, 9/16/12, DB p.46)

1987 Sep 18, In San Francisco
Pope John Paul II ended his 21-hour visit to the city by celebrating
Mass at Candlestick Park before some 70,000 people.
(SSFC, 12/22/13, p.A14)

1987 Sep 20, Pope John Paul II
concluded an 11-day visit to North America as he celebrated Mass for
thousands of Indians at Fort Simpson in Canada's Northwest
Territories.
(AP, 9/20/97)

1988 Jan 29, Nicaraguan
President Daniel Ortega received a coolly polite reception from Pope
John Paul II at the Vatican.
(AP, 1/29/98)

1988 Apr 2, Secretary of State
George P. Shultz briefed Pope John Paul II on his Middle East peace
proposals during a private audience at the Vatican.
(AP, 4/2/98)

1988 Jun 23, Pope John Paul II
began his second papal visit to Austria, where he met with President
Kurt Waldheim, despite controversy over Waldheim's alleged
involvement in Nazi war crimes.
(AP, 6/23/98)

1988 Oct 8, Pope John Paul II
journeyed to eastern France, where he addressed the Council of
Europe and the European Court of Human Rights.
(AP, 10/8/98)

1988 Dec 23, Pope John Paul II
met with Yasser Arafat at the Vatican. The pontiff told the PLO
leader he believed Palestinians and Jews had "an identical
fundamental right" to their own countries.
(AP, 12/23/98)

1988 The Shroud of Turin
Research Project (Sturp) performed radiocarbon dating on fibers of
the shroud and found that the linen dated to between 1260 and 1390
CE. Ian Wilson wrote the 1978 book "The Shroud of Turin" and in 1998
"The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence That the Most Sacred Relic
Is Real."
(WSJ, 4/10/98, p.W6)

1989 Dec 1, In an extraordinary
encounter, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev met with Pope John
Paul II at the Vatican.
(AP, 12/1/99)

1990 Apr 21, Pope John Paul II
was greeted by hundreds of thousands of people as he visited
Czechoslovakia to help celebrate the nation's peaceful overthrow of
communist rule.
(AP, 4/21/00)

1990 Sep 10, In Ivory Coast
Pope Paul II consecrated the Basilique Notre Dame de la Paix on the
condition that a hospital for the poor be built next door. It was
constructed between 1985 and 1989 at a cost of $300 million. Work on
the hospital began in 2012.
(Econ, 6/16/12, p.60)(http://tinyurl.com/ne47e)

1990 Pope John Paul II put
forth his encyclical "Redemptoris Missio," on Christian
evangelization and world religions.
(WSJ, 10/16/98, p.W13)
1990 Pope John Paul II put
forth his "Excorde Ecclesiae," a set of instructions to bishops to
safeguard the identity of Catholic institutions.
(USAT, 11/18/99, p.1A)
1990 A new church law required
Catholic dioceses around the world to support the Holy See.
(SFEM, 1/19/96, p.10)

1991 May 2, In his ninth
encyclical, Pope John Paul the Second acknowledged the success of
capitalism, but denounced the system for sometimes achieving results
at the expense of the poor and of morality. Pope John Paul II put
forth his encyclical "Centesimus Annus," on the dignity of the human
person and the free economy in the free society. He pointed out that
the main cause of the wealth of nations is knowledge, science,
know-how, and discovery.
(WSJ, 10/16/98, p.W13)(WSJ, 12/23/99, p.A18)(AP,
5/2/01)

1991 Jun 2, Pope John Paul the
Second, on a pilgrimage to his native Poland, visited the town of
Przemysl, less than ten miles from the Soviet border; an estimated
10,000 Ukrainians crossed into Poland to see the pontiff.
(AP, 6/2/01)

1991 Jun 3, Pope John Paul the
Second, visiting the Polish city of Kielce, indirectly criticized
abortion, appealing to his listeners to "prevent further destruction
of the Polish family."
(AP, 6/3/01)

1992 Oct 31, Roman Catholic
church rehabilitated Galileo Galilei after 359 years. Galileo was
tortured and imprisoned by the Holy Office during the Inquisition,
and was forced to recant his heretical views that the earth and
planets revolve around the Sun. Pope John Paul II acknowledged that
the church had erred in condemning Galileo. [see 1984]
(/www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Galileo.html)

1992 Jason Berry authored "Lead
Us Not Into Temptation," a work on clerical sex abuse.
(SFC, 3/18/02, p.F10)
1992 Pope John Paul II founded
the Mater Ecclesia convent as a prayerful counterweight to the
worldliness of the Roman Curia.
(Econ, 2/16/13, p.61)

1993 Aug 14, Pope John Paul II
denounced abortion and euthanasia as well as sexual abuse by
American priests in a speech at McNichols Sports Arena in Denver.
(AP, 8/14/98)

1993 Aug 15, Pope John Paul II
ended his four-day U.S. visit with a farewell address at Denver's
Stapleton International Airport in which he denounced the "culture
of death" of abortion and euthanasia.
(AP, 8/15/98)

1993 Dec 30, Israel and the
Vatican agreed to recognize one another. Pope John Paul II
normalized relations between the Vatican and Israel.
(SFC,12/25/97, p.A14)(AP, 12/30/97)

1994 Mar 23, Alvaro del
Portillo (b.1914), a Spanish engineer and Roman Catholic bishop,
died in Rome. He served as the prelate of Opus Dei between 1982 and
1994 and was declared Venerable by Pope Benedict XVI on June 28,
2012. His beatification was held on September 27, 2014.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81lvaro_del_Portillo)

1994 Apr 3, In his Easter
Sunday address, Pope John Paul II expressed hope that the joy of
Christianity would overwhelm the din of violence and hate.
(AP, 4/3/99)

1994 Apr 7, Pope John Paul II
made remarks at the conclusion of a concert in commemoration of the
Shoah (holocaust), in which he acknowledged the Nazi Holocaust
killing of Jews for the 1st time.
(http://tinyurl.com/c9vt8)

1994 Jun 2, President Clinton
met at the Vatican with Pope John Paul II.
(AP, 6/2/99)

1994 Jun 15, Israel and the
Vatican established full diplomatic relations.
(AP, 6/15/97)

1994 Nov 26, Thirty clergymen
were elevated to the rank of cardinal in a Vatican ceremony presided
over by Pope John Paul II.
(AP, 11/26/99)(www.usccb.org/pope/dates.htm)

1995 Oct 4, Pope John Paul the
Second arrived in the United States for a five-day visit.
(AP, 10/4/00)

1995 Pope John Paul II put
forth his encyclical "Evangelium Vitae," on the culture of life and
threats to human dignity. Also "Ut Unum Sint," on the unity of the
Church and the unity of the world.
(WSJ, 10/16/98, p.W13)

1995 The Vatican established a
simple World Wide Web site.
(Sky, 9/97, p.22)

1997 Aug 21, Pope John Paul II
began a visit to Paris with an outdoor encounter with 500,000 young
people from around the world.
(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A14)

1997 Aug 24, In France Pope
John Paul II offered tough challenges and affectionate encouragement
to more than 1 million faithful attending Mass during closing World
Youth Day ceremonies in Paris.
(AP, 8/24/98)

1997 Oct 2, In Brazil thousands
turned out to greet Pope John Paul II for the start of his 4-day
visit.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.B2)

1997 Dec 23, For the 1st time a
Chanukah candle was officially lit in Vatican City.
(www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1997/hanukkah/hanukkah.vatican/index.html)

1997 The Vatican’s top diplomat
in Ireland told bishops that their policy of mandatory reporting
suspected of sex abuse cases to police "gives rise to serious
reservations of both a moral and canonical nature." In 2011 the
Vatican insisted the letter had been "deeply misunderstood."
(AP, 1/19/11)

1998 Rev. Lawrence Murphy
(d.1998), who had worked at the former St. John's School for the
Deaf in St. Francis, Wisconsin (1950-1975), died. In July 1996,
Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland sent a letter to the
Vatican seeking advice on how to proceed with charges of sexual
molestation by Murphy on as many as 200 deaf students. Cardinal
Ratzinger, who led the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
from 1981 until 2005, when he was elected pope, did not respond. The
case was made public in 2010.
(AP, 3/25/10)

1998 Jan 24, Pope John Paul II,
delivering blunt political messages during his visit to Cuba, called
for the release of "prisoners of conscience" and respect for freedom
of expression, initiative and association.
(AP, 1/24/99)

1998 May 4, In Vatican City
Alois Estermann (43), the pope’s top bodyguard, was shot and killed
along with his wife, Gladys Meza Romero (49) in their apartment by
Cedrich Tornay (23), who then shot himself. Estermann had just been
appointed the head of the Swiss Guards and was killed by Tornay due
to damaged professional pride. An investigation was concluded in
1999 and suggested that marijuana and a brain cyst impaired Tornay.
(WSJ, 5/5/98, p.A1)(USAT, 5/6/98, p.6A)(SFC,
2/9/99, p.A10)(AP, 5/4/99)

1998 Jun 25, The Vatican agreed
to sign a joint declaration with the Lutheran Church on how humans
receive God’s forgiveness and salvation.
(SFC, 6/26/98, p.D2)

1998 Sep 18, In SF Rev. John
Charles Wester was named as Catholic Bishop of SF and titular
prelate of Lamiggiga.
(SFC, 9/19/98, p.C1)

1998 Oct 3, In Croatia Pope
John Paul II beatified Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac, the World War II
archbishop of Zagreb and a controversial figure because many Serbs
and Jews accused him of sympathizing with the Nazis.
(SFEC, 10/4/98, p.A22)(AP, 10/3/99)

1998 Oct 11, Pope John Paul II
bestowed sainthood on Edith Stein, a Jewish-born woman who became a
Catholic nun and was executed by Nazis in 1942.
(SFC, 10/12/98, p.A1)

1998 Oct 15, Pope John Paul
marked his 20th anniversary with a new encyclical "Fides et Ratio,"
or Faith and Reason with the basic message of: Be not afraid of
human reason. The 40,000 word treatisse emphasizes spiritual truth
over technology.
(SFC, 10/16/98, p.A17)(WSJ, 10/16/98, p.W13)

1998 Oct 18, Pope John Paul II
celebrated Mass at the Vatican marking the 20th anniversary of his
election to the papacy.
(AP, 10/18/99)

1998 Nov 27, From the Vatican
Pope John Paul issued a papal bull, "Incarnationis Mysterium" (The
Mystery of the Incarnation) that proclaimed 2000 a special Holy
Year. Special indulgences were offered for making pilgrimages, doing
good deeds or fasting.
(SFC, 11/28/98, p.A10)

1999 Dec 24, The Catholic Holy
Year was to begin Christmas eve and last to Jan 6, 2001. The Church
was expected to ask for forgiveness for past errors.
(SFC, 12/25/98, p.A18)

1998 Robert J. Hutchinson
published "When in Rome: A Journal of Life in Vatican City."
(SFEC, 8/9/98, p.T8)

1999 Jan 22, Pope John Paul II
began a 5-day pilgrimage to Mexico and St. Louis. He was greeted by
Pres. Zedillo some 2 dozen official sponsors who would help defray
the $2 million costs of the 4-day visit.
(SFC, 1/22/99, p.A1)(SFC, 1/23/99, p.A10)

1999 Mar 17, The Vatican and
Sony announced the release of the first music video, "Abba Pater,"
by Pope John Paul II.
(SFC, 3/17/99, p.C3)

1999 May 7, In Romania the Pope
began a 3-day visit. This was his first visit to a country with an
Orthodox Christian majority. The Pope was greeted by Orthodox
Patriarch Teoctist (84).
(WSJ, 5/7/99, p.A1)(SFC, 5/8/99, p.A10)

1999 Jun 2, President Clinton
met at the Vatican with Pope John Paul II.
(AP, 6/2/04)

1999 Jun 3, It was reported
that Catholics and Lutherans had agreed to sign an accord over the
theological issue of "justification." They agreed that divine
forgiveness and salvation come "solely by God's grace" and that good
works flow from that.
(SFC, 6/3/99, p.C4)

1999 Jun 4, Pope John Paul II
traveled to Poland, the first stop on a 13-day visit to 20 cities.
This was his 8th visit to Poland.
(WSJ, 6/4/99, p.A1)

1999 Oct 31, In Augsburg,
Germany, leaders of the Roman Catholic and modern Lutheran Churches
signed the Augsburg Accord, a "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of
Justification," in a step toward reconciliation. The accord gave
weight to the Lutheran position on salvation through faith and
embraced the Catholic ethic of earthly service.
(SFC, 11/1/99, p.A11,12)

1999 Dec 3, Acea SpA was at
issue with the Vatican over a $23.2 million sewage disposal bill.
(WSJ, 12/3/99, p.A1)

1999 Dec 24, The Catholic
Jubilee Holy Year began Christmas eve and lasted to Jan 6, 2001. The
Church was expected to ask for forgiveness for past errors. The
bronze door to St. Peter's was opened and symbolized the passage
from sin to grace.
(SFC, 12/25/98, p.A18)(SFC, 12/25/99, p.A12)

1999 John L. Heilbron, a
historian of science, authored "The Sun in the Church."
(SFC, 10/25/99, p.A4)

1999 Monsignor Luigi Marinelli
(d.2000 at 73) authored "Via col Vento in Vaticano" (Gone With the
Wind in the Vatican). It alleged intrigue and corruption in the
Vatican, became a best seller and prompted a defamation suit by the
Vatican along with a decree ordering its removal from bookstores.
(SFC, 10/25/00, p.A26)

2000 Jan 6, In China the
state-controlled Catholic Church ordained 5 new bishops while the
Pope elevated 12 prelates in St. Peter's Basilica.
(SFC, 1/7/00, p.A14)

2000 Feb 26, Pope John Paul II
visited the 6th century St. Catherine's monastery in Egypt, built on
the reputed site where Moses encountered the burning bush. He met
with Greek Orthodox Archbishop Damianos and held a short prayer
service in an olive garden outside the monastery.
(SFEC, 2/27/00, p.A20)

2000 Mar 12, In Rome Pope John
Paul II begged for God's forgiveness for sins committed or condoned
by Roman Catholics over the last 2,000 years.
(SFC, 3/13/00, p.A1)

2000 Mar 20, Pope John Paul II
arrived in Jordan for the beginning of his Holy land tour. He prayed
at Mt. Nebo where the bible says Moses first viewed the Promised
Land.
(WSJ, 3/20/00, p.A1)(SFC, 3/21/00, p.A1)

2000 Mar 21, Pope John Paul II
landed in Tel Aviv and began his official visit to Israel with a
welcome from Pres. Ezer Weizman.
(SFC, 3/22/00, p.A1)

2000 Sep 5, The Vatican issued
a statement that declared efforts to depict all religions as equal
are wrong and reasserted that the Catholic Church is the one true
church.
(WSJ, 9/6/00, p.A1)

2000 Oct 1, Pope John Paul II
canonized as martyrs 87 Chinese believers and 33 European
missionaries killed between 1648 and 1930. He also canonized Mother
Katherine Drexel (d.1955), a Philadelphia heiress, who became a nun.
(SFC, 10/2/00, p.A12)

2000 Oct 10, In Portland the
Roman Catholic Church apologized for the sexual abuse committed by
Rev. Maurice Grammond (80) between 1950-1974. The church agreed to
pay and undisclosed sum to 22 men.
(SFC, 10/11/00, p.A3)

2000 Gary Wills authored "Papal
Sin: Structures of Deceit," an indictment of how the Vatican has
rewritten history and twisted the truth in an effort to preserve
outdated teachings on human sexuality and gender equality.
(SFC, 6/17/00, p.C1)

2001 Jan 28, Pope John Paul II
named 5 new cardinals and revealed the identities of 2 others from
the former Soviet Union.
(SFC, 1/29/01, p.A14)

2001 Feb 21, Pope John Paul II
installed 44 new cardinals. It was the largest number ever installed
at one time.
(SFC, 2/21/01, p.A13)

2001 May 4, Pope John Paul II
visited Athens and apologized for Roman Catholic sins of "action or
omission" against Orthodox Christians. A day earlier some 1,000
Orthodox conservatives took to the streets to denounce his visit.
(SFC, 5/4/01, p.D3)

2001 Jun 23, Pope John Paul II
began his 5-day visit to Ukraine, where the Greek Catholic Church
had 5 million followers who observed Byzantine rites but were loyal
to Rome. He hoped to mend a rift with the Eastern Orthodoxy.
(SFC, 6/22/01, p.A14)

2001 Jun 25, In Ukraine Pope
John Paul II planned to visit Babi Yar where some 200,000 Jews and
other Nazi victims are buried. Pope John Paul II visited Babi Yar,
the site of a Nazi massacre of at least 100,000 Jews. [see 1941]
(SFC, 6/25/01, p.A8)(WS, 6/26/01, p.A1)

2001 Sep 22, Pope John Paul II
arrived in Kazakstan with good wishes for Islamic leaders and for
"all people of good will" who seek peace.
(SSFC, 9/23/01, p.A27)

2001 Nov 22, Pope John Paul II
issued a papal message via the Internet to Catholics in Australia,
New Zealand and the South Pacific islands that included an apology
for sexual abuse by priests.
(SFC, 11/23/01, p.A1)

2002 Feb 15, The bishop of the
Diocese of Dorchester, NH, named 14 priests implicated in the sexual
abuse of children from 1963-1987.
(SFC, 2/16/02, p.A7)

2002 Feb, The Archdiocese of
Boston identified 80 priests as having abused children over the last
40 years.
(SFC, 2/16/02, p.A8)

2002 Mar 28, Pope John Paul II
accepted the resignation of Julius Paetz, archbishop of Poznan,
Poland, due to a sex scandal and accusations of molesting young
seminarians.
(SFC, 3/29/02, p.A7)

2002 Mar 31, Pope John Paul II
used his Easter message to call for an end to violence in the Holy
Land.
(AP, 3/31/03)

2002 Apr 15, Pope John Paul II
summoned all US cardinals to the Vatican to discuss clerical sex
abuse scandals in the US.
(SFC, 4/16/02, p.A1)

2002 Apr 23, Pope John Paul II
opened a Vatican meeting with American cardinals to discuss sexual
abuse by clergy.
(SFC, 4/24/02, p.A1)

2002 Apr 24, US cardinals at
the Vatican issued a communique for expedited procedures to defrock
priests guilty of sexual abuse of minors.
(SFC, 4/25/02, p.A1)

2002 May 22, Pope John Paul
(82) arrived in Azerbaijan for a 2-day visit before continuing on to
Bulgaria. He hope to improve relations with the Muslim and Christian
Orthodox believers.
(WSJ, 5/22/02, p.A1)(SFC, 5/23/02, p.A1)

2002 May 24, Pope John Paul
accepted the resignation of Rembert Weakland (75), archbishop of
Milwaukee. Weakland admitted to a $450,000 settlement in 1998 to
Paul Marcoux (53) for an alleged sexual assault in 1979.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A3)

2002 May 28, Pres. Bush met
with Pope John Paul II in Vatican City and expressed his worries on
the sex scandals in the US involving Catholic clergy.
(SFC, 5/29/02, p.A8)

2002 Jun 14, US bishops voted
to remove any priest from his ministry who abuses a minor but
stopped short of zero tolerance, as pushed by some victims.
(SFC, 6/15/02, p.A1)

2002 Jul 23, A frail Pope John
Paul II walked down the steps of his plane instead of using a lift
after arriving in Canada to join thousands of young Catholic
pilgrims for World Youth Day. Tens of thousands of exuberant young
Catholics massed in Toronto to greet the Pope.
(AP, 7/23/02)(Reuters, 7/23/02)

2002 Jul 28, In Canada Pope
John Paul ended the celebrations of World Youth Day for 800,000
people in Toronto's massive Downsview Park. Speaking publicly on the
church abuse scandal for the first time, Pope John Paul II told
young Catholics that sexual abuse of children by priests "fills us
all with a deep sense of sadness and shame."
(Reuters, 7/29/02)(AP, 7/28/03)

2002 Jul 30, In Guatemala City
Pope John Paul II canonized his 463rd saint, Pedro de San Jose
Betancur, a 17th century Spanish missionary and Central America's
first saint.
(SFC, 7/31/02, p.A2)(AP, 7/30/07)
2002 Jul 30, Pope John Paul II
began a three-day visit to Mexico to canonize Juan Diego, the first
Indian saint. He arrived from Guatemala to a greeting by President
Vicente Fox and tens of thousands of people lining Mexico City's
streets.
(AP, 7/30/02)

2002 Jul 31, Pope John Paul II
canonized Juan Diego, an Indian peasant to whom church tradition
says the Virgin Mary appeared 500 years ago, in a ceremony in Mexico
that drew more than 1 million believers into the streets.
(AP, 8/1/02)

2002 Aug 2, Pope John Paul II
returned to Rome after ending an 11-day pilgrimage to Canada,
Guatemala and Mexico.
(AP, 8/2/03)

2002 Aug 5, The Vatican
excommunicated 7 women who claimed to have been recently ordained as
priests, because they had attacked the fundamental structure of the
Catholic Church. The 7 women, from Germany, Austria and the United
States, had defied an earlier Vatican warning to repent over their
participation in a June 29 ceremony which they claimed made them
priests.
(AP, 8/6/02)(WSJ, 8/6/02, p.A1)

2002 Aug 18, In a tearful,
farewell Mass in his beloved Krakow, Pope John Paul II told more
than 2 million Poles that he would like to return one day — but that
"this is entirely in God's hands."
(AP, 8/18/03)

2002 Aug 19, An ailing and
aging John Paul II bid a tearful farewell to his homeland as he
concluded a four-day visit to the Krakow region of Poland.
(AP, 8/19/03)

2002 Oct 6, Pope John Paul II
raised to sainthood Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer the Spanish priest
who founded the conservative Catholic organization Opus Dei (1928),
only 27 years after his death.
(AP, 10/6/02)

2003 May 3, Pope John Paul II
began a whirlwind visit to Madrid, Spain. He urged hundreds of
thousands of young people outside Madrid to be "artisans of peace."
(AP, 5/3/04)

2003 May 4, In Spain Pope John
Paul II proclaimed five new saints and urged Spaniards to emulate
them. They included: Pedro Poveda, a priest killed in 1936; Angela
de la Cruz, who founded the Sisters of the Company of the Cross;
Genoveva Torres, who founded the Sisters of the Sacred Heart and of
the Holy Angels; Maravillas de Jesus, who founded convents for the
Order of Barefoot Carmelites, and Jose Maria Rubio, a Jesuit priest.
(AP, 5/4/03)

2003 Sep 11, Weary and
trembling, Pope John Paul II struggled to greet Slovaks as he began
a four-day visit.
(AP, 9/11/03)

2003 Sep 14, Pope John Paul II
wrapped up a pilgrimage to Slovakia by beatifying two clerics, Greek
Catholic Bishop Vasil Hopko and Roman Catholic Sister Zdenka
Schelingova, who were jailed and tortured under the former communist
regime.
(AP, 9/14/03)

2003 Sep 19, The government of
Georgia scrapped an accord guaranteeing religious freedom for
Catholics. The next day the Vatican issued an unusually strong
rebuke to the former Soviet republic and its dominant Orthodox
Church.
(AP, 9/20/03)

2004 Apr 25, Pope John Paul II
added six more people to the ranks of Catholics on the path to
possible sainthood. Honored were: August Czartoryski (1858-1893) of
Poland, a prince who became a Salesian priest; Laura Montoya
(1874-1949) of Colombia, who founded the Congregation of the
Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Mary; Maria Guadalupe Garcia
Zavala (1878-1963) of Mexico, co-founder of the Congregation of the
Servants of Saint Margaret Mary and the Poor; Nemesia Valle
(1847-1916) of Italy, a nun of the Congregation of the Sisters of
Charity of Saint Giovanna Antida Thouret; Eusebia Palomino Yenes
(1899-1935) of Spain; a nun of the Institute of the Daughters of
Mary, Help of Christians; and da Costa (1904-1955), who became a lay
Salesian cooperator.
(AP, 4/25/04)

2004 May 16, Pope John Paul II
named six new saints, including Gianna Beretta Molla, revered by
abortion foes because she'd refused to end her pregnancy despite
warnings it could kill her. Beretta Molla, an Italian pediatrician,
died in 1962 at age 39, a week after giving birth to her fourth
child.
(AP, 5/16/05)

2004 Jun 4, Pope John Paul II
met with President Bush and reminded him of the Vatican's opposition
to the war in Iraq.
(AP, 6/4/04)

2004 Jul 31, The Vatican issued
a document denouncing feminism for trying to blur differences
between men and women and threatening the institution of families
based on a mother and a father.
(AP, 7/31/05)

2004 Aug 14, A visibly weak
Pope John Paul II joined thousands of other ailing pilgrims at a
cliffside shrine in Lourdes, France, telling them he shares in their
physical suffering and assuring them the burden is part of God's
"wondrous plan."
(AP, 8/14/05)

2005 Feb 27, Pope John Paul II
made a surprise first public appearance after surgery, appearing at
his Rome hospital window.
(AP, 2/27/06)

2005 Mar 13, Pope John Paul II
was released from the hospital and returned to his Vatican apartment
overlooking St. Peter's Square.
(AP, 3/13/06)

2005 Apr 2, Pope John Paul II,
born in Poland in 1920 as Karol Wojtyla, died in Rome at age 84. He
was elevated to Pope in 1978 and was the first non-Italian pope in
455 years. In November Viking published “John Paul the Great:
Remembering a Spiritual Father" by Peggy Noonan.
(AP, 4/2/05)(WSJ, 11/22/05, p.D8)

2005 Apr 7, President Robert
Mugabe of Zimbabwe defied a European Union travel ban and arrived in
Rome to join world leaders attending Pope John Paul II's funeral.
Italy has a pact with the Vatican in which it does not interfere
with people transiting the country to see the pope.
(AP, 4/7/05)

2005 Apr 8, World leaders
joined pilgrims and prelates in St. Peter's Square for the funeral
of Pope John Paul II.
(AP, 4/8/06)

2005 Apr 19, Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger (78) of Germany became Pope Benedict XVI. As the 265th
pope he promised to enforce strictly conservative policies for the
world's Roman Catholics. In Germany Ratzinger's latest book, "Werte
in Zeiten des Umbruchs" (Values in Times of Upheaval), was already
sold out after its release a week ago. Ratzinger viewed secularism
and moral relativism as the chief adversaries of God and the church.
After Ratzinger was elected pope, the Holy See's No. 2 official,
Cardinal Angelo Sodano, signed a decree assigning "in perpetuity and
worldwide" the copyrights of all Benedict's works, including the
hundreds he wrote before becoming pope, to the Vatican's publishing
house, Libreria Editrice Vaticana (LEV).
(AP, 4/19/05)(WSJ, 4/20/05, p.A1)(AP, 2/19/06)

2005 Apr 20, In his first Mass
as pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI pledged to work for unity among
Christians and to seek an open and sincere dialogue'' with other
faiths.
(AP, 4/20/06)

2005 Apr 24, Pope Benedict XVI
formally began his stewardship of the Roman Catholic Church; the
former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said in his installation homily
that as pontiff he would listen to the will of God in governing the
world's 1.1 billion Catholics.
(AP, 4/24/06)

2005 May 13, Pope Benedict XVI
appointed SF Archbishop William Levada (68) as the new prefect of
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s top
arbiter of questions of faith and morals.
(SFC, 5/14/05, p.A1)

2005 May 23, The Vatican said
there was no investigation under way of allegations that Rev.
Marcial Maciel Degallado, the Mexican founder of a conservative
religious order, sexually abused seminarians more than 30 years ago.
(AP, 5/23/05)

2005 Aug 18, Pope Benedict XVI
began his first foreign trip as pontiff, leaving Rome to take part
in the Roman Catholic Church's World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany.
(AP, 8/18/05)

2005 Aug 19, Pope Benedict XVI
warned of rising anti-Semitism and hostility to foreigners, winning
a standing ovation from members of Germany's oldest Jewish community
during a visit to a rebuilt synagogue that had been destroyed by the
Nazis.
(AP, 8/19/05)

2005 Aug 21, Pope Benedict XVI
triumphantly ended his four-day trip to his native Germany,
celebrating an open-air Mass for a million people in Cologne.
(AP, 8/21/06)

2005 Oct 16, Polish television
broadcast a recorded interview with Pope Benedict XVI, who said that
he planned to visit Poland, the homeland of his predecessor, John
Paul II (it's believed to be the first TV interview by a pope).
(AP, 10/16/06)

2005 Oct 22, Bishops from
around the world approved a set of 50 recommendations for Pope
Benedict XVI on running the Roman Catholic Church that reaffirm
church teaching on such issues as celibacy for priests.
(AP, 10/22/05)

2005 Oct 23, Pope Benedict XVI
named five new saints at the close of a 3-week Synod of Bishops.
They included: Rev. Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga, a Chilean Jesuit who
was known for his work with the poor as well as the young; from
Ukraine Josef Bilczewski, archbishop of Lviv, who was greatly
admired by Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Jews alike during
World War and the Rev. Zygmunt Gorazdowski, who founded the
Congregation for the Sisters of St. Joseph to care for the sick and
poor; and Italians Felice da Nicosia, a lay Capuchin who lived in
the 1700s, and the Rev. Gaetano Cantanoso, who founded the Veronican
Sisters of the Holy Face in 1934.
(AP, 10/23/05)

2005 Nov 10, Iraqi President
Jalal Talabani met with Pope Benedict XVI amid tight security that
closed down the main boulevard leading to the Vatican.
(AP, 11/10/05)

2005 Nov 17, Israeli President
Moshe Katsav met with Pope Benedict XVI and other top Roman Catholic
officials to discuss a long-standing tax dispute that has irritated
relations between Israel and the Holy See.
(AP, 11/17/05)

2005 Nov 19, Pope Benedict XVI
and Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi discussed relations between
the Catholic Church and Italy, amid accusations that the church
interferes in the country's domestic affairs.
(AP, 11/19/05)
2005 Nov 19, Pope Benedict XVI
curbed the independence of Franciscan friars running the famed St.
Francis Basilica in Assisi, decreeing they must now get permission
for their activities from the local bishop.
(AP, 11/20/05)

2005 Nov 20, The Vatican
beatified 13 Mexicans who died during a Roman Catholic uprising in
the late 1920s that was crushed by the Mexican government.
(AP, 11/20/05)

2005 Nov 22, Pope Benedict XVI
created the diocese of Ba Ria, in the Vietnam province of the same
name, by dividing up the existing diocese of Xuan Loc. He named
Monsignor Thomas Nguen Van Tram bishop of Ba Ria. Vietnam had an
estimated 6 million Catholics.
(AP, 11/22/05)

2005 Nov 29, The Vatican
published its long-awaited document on gays in the clergy, saying
men with "deep-seated" homosexual tendencies should not be ordained
but those with a "transitory problem" could be if they had overcome
them for three years.
(AP, 11/29/05)

2005 Dec 25, Pope Benedict the
16th marked his first Christmas as pope, calling for concrete
actions to back up “signs of hope" in the Middle East and urging
peace in Darfur, Sudan and the Korean peninsula.
(AP, 12/25/06)

2006 Jan 25, Pope Benedict XVI
said in his first encyclical, "God is Love," that the Roman Catholic
Church has no desire to govern states or set public policy, but
can't remain silent when its charity is needed to ease suffering
around the world.
(AP, 1/25/06)

2006 Feb 2, The Vatican
announced that Pope Benedict XVI has accepted the resignation of an
auxiliary bishop of Detroit, Thomas Gumbleton, a liberal voice in
the US church who recently revealed that a priest abused him 60
years ago.
(AP, 2/2/06)

2006 Feb 22, Pope Benedict XVI
named 15 new cardinals, including John Paul II's longtime private
secretary and prelates from Boston and Hong Kong, adding his first
installment to the elite group of churchmen who will elect his
successor.
(AP, 2/22/06)

2006 Mar 13, Pope Benedict XVI
and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak held talks at the Vatican about
Iran, Iraq and the prospects for lasting peace in the Middle East.
(AP, 3/13/06)

2006 Mar 23, Pope Benedict XVI
convened the College of Cardinals for the first time since his
election last year, inviting its members to share their concerns
about the challenges facing the Catholic Church before adding 15 new
members to their ranks.
(AP, 3/23/06)

2006 Mar 24, Pope Benedict XVI
installed his first group of cardinals, promoting 15 prelates,
including two Americans, to the elite club that chooses his
successor.
(AP, 3/24/06)

2006 Mar 25, The Vatican's
foreign minister said that the "time is ripe" for the Holy See and
Beijing to establish diplomatic relations, and confirmed it is ready
to move its embassy from Taiwan.
(AP, 3/26/06)

2006 Apr 16, In his first
Easter message as pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI urged nations to use
diplomacy to defuse nuclear crises and prayed that Palestinians
would one day have their own state alongside Israel.
(AP, 4/16/07)

2006 Apr, A group of Austrian
priests launched the Pfarrer Initiative, or pastor initiative, a
call to disobedience aimed at abolishing priestly celibacy and
opening up the clergy to women to relieve the shortages of priests.
(AP,
4/5/12)(http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfarrer-Initiative)

2006 May 3, China's
state-approved Catholic church installed a bishop without Vatican
approval, the second this week.
(AP, 5/3/06)

2006 May 4, The Vatican
excommunicated two bishops ordained by China's state-controlled
church without the pope's consent, escalating tensions as the two
sides explored preliminary moves toward improving ties.
(AP, 5/4/06)

2006 May 13, Pope Benedict XVI
named a new bishop for Vietnam, a country that lacks ties with the
Vatican but has the second highest number of Catholics in Southeast
Asia.
(AP, 5/13/06)

2006 May 19, The Vatican said
it had asked Rev. Marcial Maciel, the Mexican founder of the
conservative order Legionaries of Christ (1941), to renounce
celebrating public Masses and live a life of "prayer and repentance"
following its investigation into allegations he sexually abused
seminarians.
(AP, 5/19/06)

2006 May 25, Poland welcomed
Pope Benedict XVI with cheers and fluttering yellow and white
Vatican flags as the German-born pontiff started a four-day visit
aimed at honoring predecessor John Paul II and healing wounds from
World War II.
(AP, 5/25/06)

2006 May 28, Pope Benedict XVI
urged some 900,000 Poles at a giant mass to fight growing secularism
by spreading their Christian faith across Europe and the world. He
visited Auschwitz.
(AFP, 5/28/06)(WSJ, 5/30/06, p.A1)

2006 Jun 3, British PM Tony
Blair had a private audience with Pope Benedict XVI, at which the
two men focused on the importance of inter-faith dialogue, in
particular with "moderate Islam", in achieving peace.
(AP, 6/3/06)

2006 Jun 6, The Vatican issued
a sweeping condemnation of contraception, abortion, in-vitro
fertilization and same-sex marriage, declaring that the traditional
family has never been so threatened as in today's world.
(AP, 6/6/06)

2006 Jun 30, The Vatican said
it will release from its secret archives years of files on Pope Pius
XI, whose pontificate spanned most of the period between the world
wars.
(AP, 6/30/06)

2006 Jul 8, Pope Benedict XVI
stressed family values during a visit to Spain, where church
influence has waned and the government has angered the Vatican with
its liberal take on issues including gay marriage.
(AP, 7/8/06)

2006 Sep 12, Pope Benedict XVI
delivered a speech at Regensburg Univ. that included brusque words
about Islam. He quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor as saying
“Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will
find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by
the sword the faith he preached." The speech quickly provoked
criticism from the world’s Muslim communities. The pontiff later
said he regretted that Muslims were offended.
(SFC, 9/15/06, p.A17)(AP, 9/12/07)

2006 Sep 14, Turkey's top
Islamic cleric asked Pope Benedict XVI to take back recent remarks
he made about Islam on Sep 12. He unleashed a string of
counteraccusations against Christianity, raising tensions before the
pontiff's November visit.
(AP, 9/14/06)(SFC, 9/15/06, p.A17)

2006 Sep 16, Leaders across the
Muslim world demanded Pope Benedict XVI apologize for his remarks on
Islam and jihad. The Vatican said Pope Benedict XVI "sincerely"
regretted offending Muslims with his reference to an obscure
medieval text characterizing some of the teachings of Islam's
founder as "evil and inhuman," but the statement stopped short of
the apology demanded by Islamic leaders. Two West Bank Christian
churches were hit by firebombs, and a group claiming responsibility
said it was protesting Pope Benedict XVI's remarks about Islam.
(AP, 9/16/06)(AP, 9/16/07)

2006 Sep 17, Pope Benedict XVI
said that he was "deeply sorry" about the angry reaction to his
recent remarks about Islam, which he said came from a text that
didn't reflect his personal opinion.
(AP, 9/17/06)

2006 Sep 18, The Vatican opened
part of its secret archives to let historians review millions of
diplomatic letters, private correspondence and other church
documents to gain insight into how the Holy See dealt with the
growing persecution of Jews before World War II.
(AP, 9/18/06)

2006 Sep 25, Pope Benedict XVI
told Muslim diplomats that Christians and Muslims must work together
to guard against intolerance and violence as he sought to soothe
anger over his recent remarks about Islam.
(AP, 9/25/06)

2006 Sep 26, The Vatican said
it has excommunicated Zambia’s Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, for
defying the Holy See by installing four married men as bishops. The
prelate had already angered the Vatican by getting married in 2001.
(AP, 9/26/06)

2006 Oct 13, Pope Benedict XVI
met privately with the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet,
but the Vatican released no details of the low-key visit that was
not even listed on the pontiff's official calendar.
(AP, 10/13/06)

2006 Oct 15, Pope Benedict XVI
gave Catholics four news saints, bestowing the honor on a
19th-century nun who struggled on the American frontier, a bishop
who tended to the wounded during the Mexican Revolution and two
Italian clergy.
(AP, 10/15/06)

2006 Oct 18, Pope Benedict XVI
received an open letter signed by 38 Muslim personalities from
various countries and of different outlooks, which discussed point
by point the views on Islam expressed by the pope in his Sep 12
Regensburg lecture.
(http://popebenedict16.blogspot.com/)

2006 Nov 16, The Vatican
reaffirmed the value of celibacy for priests after a summit led by
Pope Benedict XVI that was spurred by a married African archbishop
who has been excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.
(AP, 11/16/06)

2006 Nov 26, More than 20,000
Muslims in Istanbul held the biggest protest so far against Pope
Benedict's controversial visit to Turkey this week.
(AP, 11/26/06)

2006 Nov 28, Pope Benedict XVI
began his first visit to a Muslim country with a message of dialogue
and brotherhood between Christians and Muslims in an attempt to ease
anger over his perceived criticism of Islam. In Turkey Benedict
urged all religious leaders to "utterly refuse" to support any
violence in the name of faith.
(AP, 11/28/06)(AP, 11/28/07)

2006 Dec 22, The Roman Catholic
Church denied a religious funeral for Piergiogio Welby, the
paralyzed Italian author who died after a doctor disconnected his
respirator, saying it would treat his public wish to "end his life"
as a willful suicide.
(AP, 12/22/06)

2006 Dec 25, Pope Benedict XVI
used his Christmas Day address to call for a peaceful resolution of
conflicts worldwide and appealed for greater caring of the poor, the
exploited and all who suffer.
(AP, 12/25/07)

2006 Dec 26, The Vatican called
on retired Bishop Fernando Lugo to give up his plans to run for
Paraguay's presidency or face canonical sanctions. Lugo said he had
already resigned from the priesthood to lead a planned opposition
alliance and challenge conservative President Nicanor Duarte of the
Colorado Party in elections scheduled for May 2008.
(AP, 12/26/06)

2007 Jan 11, A US federal judge
ruled that the Vatican can be sued for damages by US victims of
clerical sex abuse.
(WSJ, 1/12/07, p.A1)

2007 Mar 3, Pope Benedict named
Kazimierz Nycz, a bishop with a spotless record, as archbishop of
Warsaw to replace a prelate who resigned in disgrace after admitting
he spied for the communist police.
(Reuters, 3/3/07)

2007 Mar 13, Russian President
Vladimir Putin and Pope Benedict XVI met for the highest-level
Kremlin-Vatican talks in more than three years, focusing on easing
tension between Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians and finding
common ground in denouncing intolerance and extremism.
(AP, 3/13/07)

2007 Mar 28, In France an
official at a Paris maternity hospital said Sister
Marie-Simon-Pierre is the French nun whose testimony of a mystery
cure from Parkinson's disease will likely be accepted as the miracle
the Vatican needs to beatify Pope John Paul II.
(AP, 3/28/07)

2007 Apr 13, Benedict XVI
published “Jesus of Nazareth," his first book as pope. It offered a
very personal meditation on the early years of Christ's life and
teachings criticized the "cruelty" of capitalism and colonialism and
the power of the wealthy over the poor. A second installment,
released in 2011, concerned the final part of Christ's life, his
death and resurrection.
(AP, 4/13/07)(AP, 3/2/11)

2007 Apr 20, A Vatican
committee issued a report concluding that unbaptized babies who die
may go to heaven and not be stuck in Limbo, which “reflects an
unduly restrictive view of salvation."
(SFC, 4/21/07, p.A7)

2007 May 4, Former Iranian
President Mohammad Khatami met with Pope Benedict XVI for talks the
Vatican hoped would help heal tensions left from the pontiff's
remarks on Islam and violence, but the Iranian said the wounds were
still very deep.
(AP, 5/4/07)

2007 May 6, Italian news said a
Vatican court for the first time has issued a drug conviction,
giving a former employee of the Holy See a four-month suspended
sentence for cocaine use.
(AP, 5/6/07)

2007 May 9, Pope Benedict XVI
departed for a 5-day visit to Brazil, as evangelical Christians
packed converted storefronts and cavernous churches every Sunday.
Benedict gave his first full-fledged news conference since becoming
pontiff in 2005. When a reporter pressed Benedict on whether he
agreed that Catholic politicians who recently legalized abortion in
Mexico City should rightfully be considered excommunicated, the
response was "Yes."
(AP, 5/9/07)(AP, 5/10/07)

2007 May 10, In Brazil Pope
Benedict XVI reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to
abortion in his first speech but avoided further suggestion that
politicians who support abortion rights should be considered
excommunicated.
(AP, 5/10/07)

2007 May 11, In Sao Paulo Pope
Benedict XVI canonized Antonio de Sant'Anna Galvao (d.1822), an
18th-century Franciscan monk, as Brazil's first native-born saint.
Friar Galvao began a tradition among Brazilian Catholics of handing
out tiny rice-paper pills, inscribed with a Latin prayer, to people
seeking cures for all manner of ailments.
(AP, 5/11/07)

2007 May 13, Pope Benedict XVI
held an inaugural mass for the 5th conference of bishops from Latin
America and the Caribbean. This brought together 166 bishops to
discuss the church's situation in the region, home to nearly half of
the world's 1.1 billion Catholics.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.47)(AFP, 5/13/07)

2007 May 14, Pope Benedict XVI
returned to Rome after telling Brazilians a growing rich-poor gap is
to be lamented, but that the solution isn’t Marxism.
(WSJ, 5/15/07, p.A1)

2007 Jun 3, Pope Benedict XVI
named four new saints from France, Malta, the Netherlands and Poland
at a ceremony in St. Peter's Square. Among those honored was Sister
Marie Eugenie de Jesus Milleret, a French nun who in 1839 founded
the Religious of the Assumption to educate young girls; the Rev.
George Preca of Malta, who founded the Society of Christian Doctrine
in 1932 as a group of lay people who teach the faith to others; the
Rev. Szymon z Lipnicy of Poland, a Franciscan monk who comforted
Poles afflicted by the plague that broke out in Krakow from 1482-83
and died of it himself; and the Rev. Charles of St. Andrew (Dublin),
who was born Karel Van Sint Andries Houben in the Netherlands in
1821.
(AP, 6/3/07)

2007 Jun 9, President Bush and
Pope Benedict XVI discussed the pontiff's deep worries that
Christians in Iraq would not be embraced by the Muslim majority.
Bush, denounced by anti-American protesters on the streets of Rome,
defended his humanitarian record as he met with the Pope. Bush met
with PM Prodi for the first time several hours after seeing the
pope.
(AP, 6/9/07)(AP, 6/9/08)

2007 Jun 19, The Vatican issued
a set of "Ten Commandments" for drivers, telling motorists not to
kill, not to drink and drive, and to help fellow travelers in case
of accidents.
(AP, 6/19/07)

2007 Jun 23, Britain’s PM Tony
Blair held long talks with Pope Benedict XVI, with the Vatican stop
on his farewell tour fueling rumors that he plans to convert to
Catholicism.
(AP, 6/23/07)

2007 Jun 28, The Vatican said
Pope Benedict XVI has approved a document that relaxes restrictions
on celebrating the Latin Mass used by the Roman Catholic Church for
centuries until the modernizing reforms of the 1960s.
(AP, 6/28/07)

2007 Jul 7, Pope Benedict XVI
removed restrictions on celebrating the old form of the Latin Mass
in a concession to traditional Catholics, but he stressed that he
was in no way rolling back the reforms of the Second Vatican
Council.
(AP, 7/7/07)

2007 Jul 10, Pope Benedict XVI
has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church,
approving a document that says Orthodox churches were defective and
that other Christian denominations were not true churches.
(AP, 7/10/07)

2007 Sep 6, Pope Benedict XVI
met with Israeli President Shimon Peres, as the elder statesman and
Nobel Peace Prize laureate continued his visit to Italy amid an
international push for peace in the Middle East.
(AP, 9/6/07)

2007 Sep 7, Pope Benedict XVI
paid tribute to Holocaust victims, extending his "sadness,
repentance and friendship" to the Jewish people as he began a 3-day
pilgrimage to Austria.
(AP, 9/7/07)

2007 Sep 8, In Austria Pope
Benedict XVI blasted Europeans for being selfish and not having
enough children, in a sermon at the 850-year-old pilgrimage site of
Mariazell.
(AP, 9/8/07)

2007 Oct 17, Pope Benedict XVI
named 23 new cardinals, tapping two Americans, the patriarch of
Baghdad, and archbishops from five continents to join the elite
ranks of the "princes" of the Roman Catholic Church.
(AP, 10/17/07)

2007 Oct 28, The Vatican staged
its largest mass beatification ceremony ever, putting 498 victims
(1934-1937) of religious persecution before and during Spain's civil
war on the path to possible sainthood.
(AP, 10/28/07)

2007 Nov 6, In the Vatican
Benedict XVI raised concerns about restrictions on Christian worship
in Saudi Arabia in the first meeting ever between a pope and a
reigning Saudi king.
(AP, 11/6/07)

2007 Nov 24, Pope Benedict XVI
elevated 23 churchmen from around the world to the top ranks of the
Catholic Church hierarchy, telling them they must be willing to shed
their blood to spread the Christian faith.
(AP, 11/24/07)

2007 Pope Benedict XVI wrote an
open letter to Chinese Catholics emphasizing that the church had no
political ambitions.
(Econ, 8/23/14, p.36)

2008 Mar 10, A top Vatican
official listed drugs, pollution, genetic manipulation and social
and economic injustice as new sins.
(AP, 3/11/08)(WSJ, 3/11/08, p.A1)

2008 Mar 22, Magdi Allam (55),
Italy's most prominent Muslim, converted to Catholicism in a baptism
by the pope at a Vatican Easter service. The iconoclastic writer has
condemned Islamic extremism and defended Israel.
(AP, 3/22/08)

2008 Mar 30, The Vatican said
Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism in number of adherents. It
recently put the Roman Catholic number at 1.13 billion. Others
estimated Muslims to number around 1.3 billion.
(WSJ, 3/31/08, p.A8)

2008 Apr 15, Pope Benedict
arrived at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland and was met by
President Bush and Catholic dignitaries. Benedict turned 81 the next
day.
(AP, 4/16/08)(SFC, 4/16/08, p.A2)

2008 Apr 19,
In NYC Pope Benedict XVI preached in St. Patrick's cathedral,
assuring priests and nuns that he was close to them as they battled
the damage left by the clergy sex scandal.
(AP, 4/19/08)
2008 Apr 19, Alfonso Lopez
Trujillo (b.1935), Vatican enforcer and former archbishop of
Medellin, died. In 1995, as head of the Pontifical council for the
Family, he published a “Lexicon of Ambiguous and Debatable Terms."
(Econ, 5/3/08,
p.93)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_L%C3%B3pez_Trujillo)

2008 Apr 20, Pope Benedict XVI
held a Mass at Yankee Stadium on his last day in the US.
(WSJ, 4/21/08, p.A1)

2008 Jun 27, Archbishop Raymond
Burke of St. Louis, a church law expert known for his tough stance
that politicians who support abortion rights be denied Holy
Communion, was named to head the Vatican's supreme court.
(AP, 6/28/08)

2008 Jul 12, Pope Benedict XVI
left Rome on a flight to Australia for a 10-day pilgrimage. The Pope
said he will use his visit to Australia to apologize for sexual
abuse by priests and to examine how the Church can "prevent, heal
and reconcile".
(AFP, 7/12/08)

2008 Jul 13, Pope Benedict XVI
arrived in Sydney, after a stop in Darwin, for one of the largest
Christian gatherings on Earth, starting a visit set to be marked by
his apology for sexual abuse by priests in Australia.
(AFP, 7/13/08)

2008 Jul 18, In Australia Pope
Benedict XVI warned Christian leaders that the push to unite
Christian churches was at a "critical juncture" and called on people
of all religions to join together against violence.
(AFP, 7/18/08)

2008 Jul 19, In Sidney,
Australia, Pope Benedict apologized directly for the first time for
sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy, but victims groups said
they wanted action and not words.
(Reuters, 7/19/08)

2008 Jul 20, In Australia Pope
Benedict XVI said a "spiritual desert" was spreading throughout the
world and he challenged young people to shed the greed and cynicism
of their time to create a new age of hope for humankind.
(AP, 7/20/08)

2008 Jul 21, In Sidney Pope
Benedict XVI met privately with Australians who were sexually abused
as children by priests, ending a pilgrimage to the country with a
gesture of contrition and concern over a scandal that has rocked the
Roman Catholic church.
(AP, 7/21/08)

2008 Jul 30, The papal nuncio
said Paraguay's president-elect Fernando Lugo (57) has received
unprecedented permission from the pope to resign as bishop, ending a
dispute over his priestly status.
(AP, 7/31/08)

2008 Sep 12, Pope Benedict XVI
urged France to take Christianity into account despite its secular
tradition, saying on his first visit there as pontiff that church
and state should be open to each other.
(AP, 9/12/08)

2008 Oct 12, Pope Benedict XVI
gave the Roman Catholic church four new saints, including an Indian
woman whose canonization is seen as a morale boost to Christians in
India who have suffered Hindu violence. They included Sister
Alphonsa (1910-1946) of the Immaculate Conception, a nun from
southern India and India’s first woman saint; Gaetano Errico
(1791-1860), a Neapolitan priest who founded a missionary order in
the 19th century; Sister Maria Bernarda, born as Verena Buetler
(1848-1924) in Switzerland, who worked as a nun in Ecuador and
Colombia; and Narcisa de Jesus Martillo Moran (1832-1869), a 19th
century laywoman from Ecuador who helped the sick and the poor.
(AP, 10/12/08)

2008 Nov 4, In a bid to improve
strained Catholic-Muslim relations, the Vatican hosted scholars,
imans and clerics from both religions as it opened a three-day
religious conference.
(AP, 11/4/08)

2008 Dec 12, The Vatican raised
its opposition to embryonic stem cell research, the morning-after
pill, in vitro fertilization and human cloning to a new level in a
major new document on bioethics.
(AP, 12/12/08)

2008 Dec 31, The Vatican
announced that it will no longer automatically adopt new Italian
laws as its own, citing the vast number of laws Italy churns out,
many of which are in odds with Catholic doctrine.
(AP, 12/31/08)

2009 Jan 5, The Vatican said
that Bishop Allen H. Vigneron will replace Cardinal Adam Joseph
Maida at the head of the Detroit archdiocese. The pope also named
the auxiliary bishop of Halifax, Claude Champagne, as the new bishop
of Edmundston in Canada. Benedict appointed the Rev. Cirilo Flores
as new auxiliary bishop of Orange, California.
(AP, 1/5/09)

2009 Jan 24, Pope Benedict
rehabilitated four traditionalist bishops who lead the far-right
Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), which has about 600,000 members and
rejects modernizations of Roman Catholic worship and doctrine. One
of the four, British-born Richard Williamson, has made statements
denying the full extent of the Nazi Holocaust of European Jews, as
accepted by mainstream historians.
(Reuters, 1/26/09)

2009 Jan 28, Israel’s chief
rabbinate cut ties with the Vatican to protest the reinstatement of
English-born Bishop Richard Williamson (b.1940), who has continued
to deny the Holocaust. Williamson was excommunicated by the Roman
Catholic Church in 1988 because of his unauthorized consecration by
French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, deemed by the Holy See to be
"unlawful" and "a schismatic act."
(WSJ, 1/29/09,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Williamson_(bishop))

2009 Jan 31, The Vatican
announced that the Pope has tapped the Rev. Gerhard Maria Wagner
(54) to be auxiliary bishop in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria
province. Wagner caused a stir in 2005 when he was quoted as saying
that he was convinced that the death and destruction of Hurricane
Katrina earlier that year was "divine retribution" for tolerance of
homosexuals and laid-back sexual attitudes in New Orleans.
(AP, 2/1/09)

2009 Feb 4, The Vatican
demanded that Bishop Richard Williamson recant his positions on the
Holocaust before being admitted as a bishop into the Roman Catholic
Church.
(WSJ, 2/5/09, p.A8)

2009 Mar 16, The Vatican said
it will launch a Chinese version of its website on March 19 in an
effort to bring more of Pope Benedict's message to China, whose
communist government does not allow Catholics to recognize his
authority.
(Reuters, 3/16/09)

2009 Mar 17, Pope Benedict XVI
arrived in Cameroon to start his first visit to Africa as pontiff.
Benedict, arriving in Africa, said that condoms "increase the
problem" of AIDS. The comment, made to reporters aboard his plane,
caused a worldwide firestorm of criticism.
(Reuters, 3/18/09)

2009 Mar 20, Tens of thousands
of Angolans welcomed Pope Benedict XVI. He urged Angolans to
continue on the path of reconciliation after nearly three decades of
civil war, saying dialogue could overcome all conflict and tension.
(AP, 3/20/09)

2009 Mar 21, In Angola Pope
Benedict XVI appealed to the Catholics of Angola to reach out to and
convert believers in witchcraft who feel threatened by "spirits" and
"evil powers" of sorcery. Two people were killed in a deadly
stampede that broke out at Luanda stadium a few hours before Pope
Benedict XVI addressed young people.
(AP, 3/21/09)

2009 Mar 23, The Vatican said
Pope Benedict XVI has named Monsignor Salvatore Joseph Cordileone, a
San Diego clergyman, to be bishop of Oakland, California.
(AP, 3/23/09)

2009 Apr 17, The Vatican said
it will spend $660 million to build the biggest solar plant in
Europe on 740 acres of pasture land it owns north of Rome.
(SFC, 4/18/09, p.C1)

2009 Apr 26, Pope Benedict XVI
named five new saints, including Portugal's 14th century
independence leader and an Italian priest who ministered to factory
workers at the dawn of the industrial era.
(AP, 4/26/09)

2009 Apr 27, Belarus'
authoritarian Pres. Lukashenko met with Pope Benedict XVI on his
first trip to Western Europe since the European Union lifted a
travel ban imposed in 1999 over his dismal human rights record. The
EU lifted the ban to allow Lukashenko to attend an East-West summit
in Prague, Czech Republic, in May.
(www.contracostatimes.com/nationandworld/ci_12237339)

2009 May 8, Pope Benedict XVI
arrived in Jordan and expressed deep respect for Islam. He said he
hopes the Catholic Church can play a role in Mideast peace as he
began his first trip to the region, where he hopes to improve frayed
ties with Muslims.
(AP, 5/8/09)

2009 May 10, In Jordan Pope
Benedict XVI urged Middle East Christians to persevere in their
faith despite hardships threatening their ancient communities,
addressing a crowd of 20,000 who filled a sports stadium where he
celebrated the first open-air Mass of his pilgrimage.
(AP, 5/10/09)

2009 May 11, Pope Benedict XVI
confronted the dark history of his native Germany on the first day
of his visit to Israel, shaking the hands of six Holocaust survivors
and saying victims of the genocide "lost their lives but they will
never lose their names." He also called for the establishment of an
independent Palestinian homeland, a stance that could put him at
odds with his hosts on a trip aimed at improving ties between the
Vatican and Jews.
(AP, 5/11/09)

2009 May 13, Standing in
Bethlehem, Pope Benedict XVI told Palestinians he understands their
suffering and offered the Vatican's strongest and most symbolic
public backing yet for an independent Palestinian homeland.
(AP, 5/13/09)

2009 May 14, Pope Benedict XVI
greeted tens of thousands of adoring followers in Nazareth with a
message of reconciliation, urging Christians and Muslims to overcome
recent strife and "reject the destructive power of hatred and
prejudice."
(AP, 5/14/09)

2009 May 15, In Israel Pope
Benedict XVI ended his pilgrimage to the Holy Land with his
strongest call yet for the creation of a Palestinian state and
telling the faithful at the site of Jesus' crucifixion that peace is
possible.
(AP, 5/15/09)

2009 Jun 29, Pope Benedict XVI
signed his latest encyclical, "Charity in Truth," a text on ways to
make globalization more attentive to meeting the needs of the poor
amid the worldwide financial crisis.
(AP, 6/29/09)

2009 Jul 6, Vatican Radio began
airing advertisements for the first time in its 80-year history.
Vatican debt last year was pegged at $22 Million.
(SFC, 7/27/09, p.D3)

2009 Jul 10, At the Vatican
Pope Benedict XVI stressed the church's opposition to abortion and
stem cell research in his first meeting with President Barack Obama.
(AP, 7/10/09)

2009 Jul 30, Italy approved the
use of the abortion drug RU-486, drawing fierce protests by the
Vatican. The Italian Drug Agency ruled that the drug cannot be sold
in drug stores but can only be administered by doctors in a
hospital.
(AP, 7/31/09)

2009 Sep 26, Pope Benedict XVI
criticized the communist era's fierce religious persecution as he
began a three-day pilgrimage to the Czech Republic, and urged the
heavily secular nation to rediscover its Christian roots.
(AP, 9/26/09)

2009 Oct 4, Pope Benedict
opened a special meeting of bishops on Africa by praising the
continent as the world's spiritual center but lamenting that it
risks being afflicted by materialism and religious fundamentalism.
(AP, 10/4/09)

2009 Oct 11, Pope Benedict XVI
canonized five new saints, including Father Damien, a 19th-century
priest who worked with leprosy patients on a Hawaiian island;
Zygmunt Szcezesny Felinski, a 19th-century Polish bishop who
defended the Catholic faith during the years of the Russian
annexation; Spaniards Francisco Coll y Guitart, who founded an order
of Dominicans in the 19th century, and Rafael Arniaz Baron, who
renounced an affluent lifestyle at age 22 to live a humble life in a
strict monastery and dedicate himself to prayer; and Jeanne Jugan
(d.1879), a French nun, who helped found the Little Sisters of the
Poor.
(AP, 10/11/09)

2009 Oct 24, Pope Benedict XVI
appointed Cardinal Peter Turkson (61) of Ghana to head the Vatican's
justice and peace office, a high-profile post that cements his
reputation as a possible future papal candidate. Turkson's
appointment to his new post was announced at the end of a three-week
Vatican meeting on the role of the Catholic Church in Africa.
(AP, 10/24/09)

2009 Oct 25, Pope Benedict XVI
ended a three-week Vatican meeting on Africa with a call for peace
and reconciliation among all people on the continent, regardless of
ethnic and religious differences.
(AP, 10/25/09)

2009 Oct 31, The Vatican said
it will admit married Anglican priests to the Catholic priesthood
case by case. In no case could a married man become a bishop, and
the new rules would exclude any married Anglican bishop from
retaining that post.
(AP, 10/31/09)

2009 Nov 3, Europe's court of
human rights ruled the display of crucifixes in Italian public
schools violates religious and education freedoms under the
continent's rights convention. The court ordered Italy to pay a
$7,390 fine to a mother who has fought for 8 years to have
crucifixes removed from public school classrooms. The Vatican
denounced the ruling.
(AP, 11/3/09)(SFC, 11/4/09, p.A2)

2009 Nov 10, The Vatican
presented results of a 5-day conference that gathered experts to
discuss astrobiology, the study of the origin of life and its
existence elsewhere in the cosmos.
(SFC, 11/11/09, p.A2)

2009 Dec 11, At the Vatican
Vietnam’s President Nguyen Minh Triet met with Pope Benedict XVI for
40 minutes, twice as long as was scheduled and the first time that
the head of state of Vietnam has met with the pope since the
communists took power in 1954. Vietnam's 6 million Roman Catholics
is one of the largest Catholic communities in Asia.
(AP, 12/11/09)

2009 Dec 17, The Vatican said
Bishop Donal Murray (69), a Roman Catholic bishop in Ireland, has
resigned after a probe of child sex abuse by clergymen accused him
of ignoring reports of crimes by priests in his diocese from
1982-1996.
(AP, 12/17/09)
2009 Dec 17, The Vatican said
it has stripped charismatic Zambian Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo of
his priestly duties because he defiantly continues to ordain bishops
despite already being excommunicated. Milingo angered the Vatican
when he got married in 2001 to a South Korean woman by the Rev. Sun
Myung Moon of the Unification Church. He was excommunicated in 2006
after installing four married men as bishops.
(AP, 12/17/09)

2009 Dec 24, At the Vatican a
woman jumped a barrier and rushed at Pope Benedict XVI (82) for the
second time in two years, managing to knock him down before being
pulled away by security. The Vatican identified the woman involved
as Susanna Maiolo (25), a Swiss-Italian national with psychiatric
problems, who was immediately taken to a clinic for treatment. The
pope was unhurt but retired Vatican diplomat, French Cardinal Roger
Etchegaray (87), fractured his hip in the commotion.
(AP, 12/25/09)

2009 Dec 31, The Ugandan
government said it was investigating the breakaway Catholic
Apostolic National Church in Uganda and would ban it if found to be
illegal. 20 renegade Catholic priests, who are either married or
want to marry, have broken from the mainstream Roman Catholic Church
and formed a new church where celibacy is not required. Vatican
officials said the priests were now considered "outside" the
Catholic Church and would likely be excommunicated.
(AP, 12/31/09)

2010 Feb 19, Pope Benedict XVI
approved sainthood for Mother Mary MacKillop (1842-1909), making the
woman known for her work among the needy Australia's first saint.
Sainthood was also approved for Stanislaw Soltys, a 15th-century
Polish priest; Italian nuns Giulia Salzano and Battista Varano;
Spanish nun Candida Maria de Jesus Cipitria y Barriola and a
Canadian brother, Andre Bessette (d.1937). The formal canonization
will take place Oct. 17 in Rome.
(AP, 2/19/10)

2010 Mar 24, Pope Benedict XVI
accepted the resignation of Bishop John Magee, a former papal aide
who stands accused of endangering children by failing to follow the
Irish church's own rules on reporting suspected pedophile priests to
police.
(AP, 3/24/10)

2010 Apr 12, The Vatican
responded to allegations it long concealed clerical sex abuse by
making it clear for the first time that bishops and clerics
worldwide should report such crimes to police if they are required
to by law.
(AP, 4/13/10)

2010 Apr 18, Pope Benedict XVI
met in Malta with a group of clerical sex-abuse victims and promised
them with tears in his eyes that the Catholic Church would seek
justice for pedophile priests and implement "effective measures" to
protect young people from abuse. 10 Maltese men came forward earlier
this month saying they wanted to meet with the pope to tell him
their stories and to request an apology. They said they were abused
by 4 priests at a Catholic orphanage.
(AP, 4/18/10)

2010 Apr 22, Pope Benedict XVI
accepted the resignation of Irish Bishop James Moriarty of Kildare,
who acknowledged failing to report abuse to police, while a German
bishop also offered to step down.
(AP, 4/22/10)

2010 May 1, The Vatican
announced that Pope Benedict XVI would name a papal delegate to
govern the scandal-plagued Legionaries of Christ and that a special
commission would study its founding constitutions to reform it. The
decisions were made after five Vatican investigators reported to the
pope about their eight-month global inquiry into the order after its
late founder was so thoroughly discredited by revelations of his
double life.
(AP, 5/2/10)

2010 May 8, Bishop Walter Mixa,
a leading German bishop who has acknowledged slapping children and
is being investigated for sexual abuse of minors and financial
misconduct, lost his job as Pope Benedict XVI continued cleaning
house.
(AP, 5/8/10)

2010 Jun 4, Pope Benedict XVI
began a pilgrimage to Cyprus bringing a message of peace to the
region as Greek Cypriot leaders made a blistering attack on Turkey
for its occupation of northern Cyprus.
(AP, 6/4/10)

2010 Jun 8, At the Vatican
groups that have long demanded that women be ordained Roman Catholic
priests took advantage of the Vatican's crisis over clerical sex
abuse to press their cause, demanding the Vatican open discussions
on letting women join the priesthood.
(AP, 6/8/10)

2010 Jun 20, The Vatican
pledged that Naples’ Cardinal Crescensio Sepe would cooperated in an
alleged corruption probe over his real transactions and other
dealings.
(SFC, 6/21/10, p.A2)

2010 Jun 27, Pope Benedict
denounced as "surprising and deplorable" raids by Belgian police on
Church offices and the home of a cardinal this week during an
investigation into pedophilia by Roman Catholic priests.
(Reuters, 6/27/10)

2010 Jun 28, Pope Benedict XVI
announced the creation of a new Vatican office to fight
secularization and "re-evangelize" the West, a tacit acknowledgment
that his attempts to reinvigorate Christianity in Europe haven't
succeeded and need a new boost.
(AP, 6/29/10)

2010 Jul 15, The Vatican issued
a new set of norms to respond to the worldwide clerical abuse
scandal. The norms extend from 10 to 20 years the statute of
limitations on priestly abuse and also codify for the first time
that possessing or distributing child pornography is a canonical
crime.
(AP, 7/15/10)

2010 Sep 16, Pope Benedict XVI,
beginning a controversial visit to Britain, acknowledged that the
Catholic Church had failed to act decisively or quickly enough to
deal with priests who rape and molest children. He said the church's
top priority now was to help the victims heal.
(AP, 9/16/10)

2010 Sep 18, In Britain Pope
Benedict XVI said he was ashamed of the "unspeakable" sexual abuse
of children by priests, issuing an apology to the British faithful
even as thousands of people opposed to his visit marched in central
London in the biggest protest of his five-year papacy.
(AP, 9/18/10)

2010 Sep 19, In Britain Pope
Benedict XVI beatified Cardinal John Henry Newman at an open-air
Mass and marked the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain with a
personal reflection on the evil of the Nazi regime, praising those
who "courageously" resisted it.
(AP, 9/19/10)

2010 Sep 21, Italian
prosecutors launched an investigation into the Vatican bank's top
executives for allegedly violating money laundering legislation,
triggering a sharp rebuttal by the Vatican. The bank's top two
officials were under investigation for suspected money laundering
and police have frozen 23 million euros ($30.21 million) of its
funds.
(AFP, 9/21/10)(Reuters, 9/21/10)

2010 Oct 8, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy met with the pope and top Vatican officials in a
fence-mending visit following France's controversial crackdown on
Gypsies, while a top Vatican cardinal urged France to welcome
immigrants and those who have been persecuted.
(AP, 10/8/10)

2010 Oct 17, Pope Benedict XVI
proclaimed Australia's first saint, canonizing Mary MacKillop
(1842-1909), a 19th-century nun. The Vatican also declared five
other saints in an open-air Mass attended by tens of thousands.
Brother Andre (1845-1937), a Canadian, Italian nuns Giulia Salzano
and Battista Camilla da Varano, and Spanish nun Candida Maria de
Jesus Cipitria y Barriola were also canonized.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 17, The official
Vatican newspaper said that beer-swilling, doughnut-loving Homer
Simpson and son Bart are Catholics, and what's more, it says that
parents should not be afraid to let their children watch "the
adventures of the little guys in yellow." Executive producer Al Jean
told Entertainment Weekly the next day he was in "shock and awe" at
the latest assertion, adding that the Simpsons attend the
"Presbylutheran" First Church of Springfield. "The Simpsons" is the
longest-running prime-time TV series in the United States and is now
in its 22nd season.
(Reuters, 10/18/10)

2010 Oct 20, Pope Benedict XVI
named 24 new cardinals, putting his mark on the body that will elect
his successor and giving a boost to Italian hopes to regain the
papacy.
(AP, 10/20/10)

2010 Nov 6, In Spain Pope
Benedict XVI blasted the "aggressive" anti-church sentiment he said
was flourishing in Spain as he sought to rekindle the faith in a
once-staunchly Roman Catholic nation that is now among Europe's most
liberal.
(AP, 11/6/10)

2010 Nov 8, Five Church of
England bishops announced they are converting to Catholicism
following an invitation to disaffected Anglicans from Pope Benedict
XVI, the highest-profile defectors among conservatives opposed to
gay bishops and female clergy.
(AP, 11/8/10)

2010 Nov 19, The world's
cardinals met at the Vatican to discuss religious freedom, sex abuse
by clergy and other issues amid a new dispute with China over an
illicit ordination that threatens delicate relations between the
two.
(AP, 11/19/10)

2010 Nov 20, Pope Benedict XVI
formally created 24 new cardinals amid cheers in St. Peter's
Basilica, bringing a mostly Italian group into the elite club that
will eventually elect his successor. Benedict XVI reiterated that
condoms are not a moral solution for stopping AIDS. But he added
that in some cases, such as for male prostitutes, their use could
represent a first step in assuming moral responsibility "in the
intention of reducing the risk of infection.
(AP, 11/20/10)(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 20, China's
government-backed Catholic church ordained a bishop who did not have
the pope's approval, despite objections from the Vatican.
(AP, 11/20/10)

2010 Nov 24, The Vatican
denounced China for ordaining a bishop without papal consent,
accusing the government-backed church of gravely damaging the faith
and warning that the bishop risked excommunication. The Vatican also
accused Chinese authorities of committing "grave violations of
freedom of religion and conscience" by forcing Vatican-approved
bishops to attend the ordination ceremony of Rev. Joseph Guo Jincai.
(AP, 11/24/10)

2010 Nov 26, In Chile the
lawyer for a group of men who accused Fernando Karadima, a prominent
Chilean priest, of sexually abusing them as teenagers said his
clients will not appeal a ruling in favor of the clergyman. Five
men, now adults, had alleged that Karadima began abusing them about
20 years ago, when they were between 14 and 17 years old. In 2011
the Vatican said Karadima was guilty of abusing minors and must
retire.
(AP, 11/26/10)(SFC, 2/19/11, p.A2)

2010 Dec 2, Retired Naples
Cardinal Michele Giordano (80), the highest ranking church official
to ever stand trial in Italy, died. The cardinal was acquitted in
2000 of charges that he supplied about $800,000 (€600,000) to
finance a loan-shark ring run linked to his family. He was also
accused of misappropriating another $500,000 in church funds. He had
always proclaimed his innocence.
(AP, 12/3/10)

2010 Dec 6, In Ireland Tony
Walsh (56) was convicted of raping 3 boys over a 5-year period three
decades earlier. Investigators had concluded that Walsh actually
raped and molested hundreds of boys and girls while serving as a
Dublin priest from 1978 to 1996. Investigators also reported that
the Vatican had tried to stop the Dublin church from defrocking
Walsh.
(SFC, 12/18/10, p.A4)

2011 Jan 12, Pope Benedict XVI
named a new archbishop for the Catholic church in Haiti on the first
anniversary of the devastating earthquake that killed the bishop's
predecessor along with dozens of other priests, seminarians and
nuns. The Vatican said that Monsignor Guire Poulard, bishop of Les
Cayes, is the new archbishop of Port-au-Prince.
(AP, 1/12/11)

2011 Jan 15, Three former
Church of England bishops who are opposed to the consecration of
women bishops were ordained as Roman Catholic priests, the first
traditionalist Anglicans to take up an offer by Pope Benedict.
(Reuters, 1/15/11)

2011 Jan 20, Egypt's highest
Islamic authority, al-Azhar, said it was freezing all dialogue with
the Roman Catholic Church over what it called Pope Benedict's
repeated insults toward Islam.
(Reuters, 1/20/11)

2011 Feb 3, British lawmakers
demanded an explanation into why 1.85 million pounds ($2.99 million)
of foreign aid money helped pay for the pope's visit to the U.K.
last year.
(AP, 2/3/11)

2011 Feb 17, Pope Benedict XVI
and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met at the Vatican, stressing
the need for better ties and the promotion of shared Christian
values.
(AP, 2/17/11)

2011 Feb 18, The Vatican said
Fernando Karadima, a prominent Chilean priest, has been found guilty
of abusing minors and must retire to a life of prayer and penitence.
(SFC, 2/19/11, p.A2)

2011 Mar 30, China ordained a
new Catholic bishop approved by the Vatican for the first time since
ties between the sides soured last year. Paul Liang Jiansen was made
bishop of the southern city of Jiangmen.
(AP, 4/11/11)

2011 May 1, Pope Benedict XVI
beatified Pope John Paul II before 1.5 million faithful in St.
Peter's Square and surrounding streets, moving the beloved former
pontiff one step closer to possible sainthood in one of the largest
turnouts ever for a Vatican Mass.
(AP, 5/1/11)

2011 May 2, The Vatican said in
a statement that Pope Benedict XVI had "removed from pastoral care"
Bishop William Morris of the Toowoomba diocese, west of Brisbane.
Morris had called on the church to consider ordaining women and
married men.
(AP, 5/2/11)

2011 May 4, The Vatican
condemned former Canadian Bishop Raymond Lahey after he pleaded
guilty to possession of child pornography and said it planned to
take disciplinary action against him.
(Reuters, 5/4/11)

2011 Jun 23, China's
state-controlled Catholic church said it will move swiftly to
appoint new bishops in dioceses where there are none, in a step that
is certain to worsen frictions with the Vatican. Filling the more
than 40 empty bishop's seats is an urgent task because the vacancies
are causing serious problems in the handling of church affairs.
(AP, 6/23/11)

2011 Jul 2, The Vatican
reported that it made a profit of $14.3 million in 2010. Donations
from the faithful fell 18% or nearly $15 million.
(SSFC, 7/3/11, p.A5)

2011 Jul 14, China’s
state-backed Catholic hierarchy held a 3-hour ceremony to consecrate
a bishop in Shantou. 4 Rome-aligned bishops were reportedly abducted
and pressed to take part in the ceremony.
(Econ, 8/20/11, p.40)

2011 Jul 16, The Vatican
announced that Chinese bishop Joseph Huang Bingzhang ordained
without papal approval on July 14, was excommunicated for accepting
his new post.
(SSFC, 7/17/11, p.A4)

2011 Jul 18, The Vatican and
Malaysia established diplomatic relations in the wake of tensions
between Muslims and religious minorities in the Southeast Asian
nation.
(AP, 7/18/11)

2011 Aug 17, The Vatican,
reeling from unprecedented criticism over its handling of sexual
abuse cases in Ireland, took the unusual step of publishing its
internal files about Rev. Andrew Ronan (d.1992) accused of molesting
youngsters in Ireland and the US. A man, known in court papers as
John V. Doe, was seeking to hold the Vatican liable for the abuse.
Files showed that the Holy See didn't learn of the accusations
against Ronan until 1966, after the abuse against Doe occurred in
Portland.
(AP, 8/17/11)

2011 Aug 19, In Spain Pope
Benedict XVI lamented what he called modern society's "amnesia"
about God as he traveled to a famed Spanish monastery on the second
day of his four-day visit for the church's world youth festival.
(AP, 8/19/11)

2011 Aug 20, In Spain Pope
Benedict XVI said he would confer one of the Catholic Church's
highest honors on St. John of Avila, an influential 16th-century
Spanish saint, making a surprise announcement during a Mass at the
church's world youth festival. Pope John Paul II added St. Therese
of Lisieux to the list in 1997, the last time one was proclaimed,
making her #33.
(AP, 8/20/11)

2011 Aug 21, In Spain Pope
Benedict XVI urged more than 1.5 million young people to become
missionaries for the faith as he concluded a glitch-marred church
youth festival and announced that the next edition will be in Rio de
Janeiro in 2013.
(AP, 8/21/11)

2011 Sep 22, Pope Benedict XVI
warned Germans of the danger of ignoring religion as he began the
first state visit to his homeland, seeking to stem the tide of
Catholics leaving the church while acknowledging the damage caused
by the clerical sex abuse scandal.
(AP, 9/22/11)

2011 Oct 11, Two Italians, who
say they were sexually abused by priests, completed a 19-day,
340-mile (550-km) protest march to the Vatican and tried
unsuccessfully to obtain an audience with the pope.
(AP, 10/11/11)

2011 Oct 17, In Italy Rev. Roy
Bourgeois, a US Catholic priest who supports ordination for women,
was detained by police after marching to the Vatican to press the
Holy See to lift its ban on women priests.
(AP, 10/17/11)

2011 Oct 23, Pope Benedict XVI
named 3 new saints for the Catholic Church during a Mass in St.
Peter's Square that was disrupted by a man who climbed out onto the
upper colonnade of the square and burned a bible. Named were 3
19th-century founders of religious orders: Italian bishop and
missionary Monsignor Guido Maria Conforti, Spanish nun Sister
Bonifacia Rodriguez de Castro and Rev. Luigi Guanella an Italian
priest who worked with the poor.
(AP, 10/23/11)

2011 Oct 24, The Vatican called
for an overhaul of the world’s financial systems and again proposed
the establishment of a supranational authority to oversee the global
economy in a report issued by the Pontifical Council for Justice and
Peace.
(SFC, 10/25/11, p.A5)

2011 Oct 27, Pope Benedict XVI
joined Buddhist monks, Islamic scholars, Yoruba leaders and a
handful of agnostics in Assisi making a communal call for peace,
insisting that religion must never be used as a pretext for war or
terrorism. The event commemorated the 25th anniversary of a daylong
prayer for peace here called by Pope John Paul II in 1986.
(AP, 10/27/11)

2011 Nov 3, Catholic Ireland
announced that it is closing its embassy to the Vatican. Dublin's
foreign ministry said the embassy was being closed because "it
yields no economic return" and that relations would be continued
with an ambassador in Dublin.
(Reuters, 11/4/11)

2011 Nov 18, Pope Benedict XVI
arrived in Benin, marking his second visit to Africa in a heartland
of voodoo and warning against "unconditional submission" to the laws
of the market and finance.
(AFP, 11/18/11)

2011 Nov 19, In Benin Pope
Benedict XVI called on Africa's leaders to stop depriving their
people of hope and to govern responsibly, just hours before he
planned to unveil an 87-page pastoral guide for the continent.
(AP, 11/19/11)

2011 Nov 20, In Benin Pope
Benedict XVI led tens of thousands of people in a panoply of African
tongues during a Mass in the national soccer stadium. He formally
delivered to Africa's bishops an 87-page document known as a
treatise. It applies church doctrine to address the continent's
ills, especially the wars and conflicts caused by ethnic divisions
and has been called a "papal road map" for Africa.
(AP, 11/20/11)

2011 Nov 23, Pope Benedict XVI
accepted the resignation of another Irish bishop, leaving seven of
Ireland's 26 Catholic dioceses without one and raising expectations
of major cutbacks in the size of the Irish church following
child-abuse scandals. Seamus Hegarty (71) offered his resignation
two weeks ago as bishop of Derry, citing an unspecified
"irreversible" illness as the reason for quitting.
(AP, 11/23/11)

2011 Nov 27, A new translation
of the Mass was rolled out across the English-speaking Catholic
world after months of preparation.
(AP, 11/28/11)

2011 Dec 13, Pope Benedict XVI
approved seven new saints for the Catholic Church, including
Hawaii's Mother Marianne and a 17th-century Native American,
Caterina Tekakwitha. Marianne cared for leprosy patients on Hawaii's
Molokai peninsula in the late 1880s, soon after the death of Father
Damien, who was canonized in 2009. Tekakwitha, who lived from
1656-1680 in the US and Canada, became the first Native American to
be beatified in 1980.
(AP, 12/19/11)

2012 Jan 1, Pope Benedict XVI
named convert Rev. Jeffrey Neil Steenson, a married priest and
former sportswriter, to head the first organizational structure for
US converts to Roman Catholicism wanting to retain some of their
Anglican heritage.
(AP, 1/1/12)

2012 Jan 4, Los Angeles
Auxiliary Bishop Gabino Zavala (60) resigned under the code of canon
law that lets bishops step down earlier than the normal retirement
age of 75 if they're sick or for some other reason that makes them
unfit for office. Zavala had told the Pope in December that he had
two children who lived with their mother in a different state.
(AP, 1/4/12)

2012 Jan 26, The Vatican
defended its transfer of a top official to Washington after he
exposed alleged corruption in the awarding of Holy See contracts.
The previous evening the Italian investigative news program, "The
Untouchables," showed letters from Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano to
Pope Benedict XVI begging not to be transferred after exposing
corruption costing the Vatican millions of euros (dollars).
(AP, 1/26/12)

2012 Feb 18, Pope Benedict XVI
brought 22 new Catholic churchmen into the elite club of cardinals
who will elect his successor, in a greatly simplified ceremony that
took account of evidence the 84-year-old pontiff is slowing down.
This brought to 125 the number of cardinals under age 80 who are
thus eligible to vote in a papal election.
(AP, 2/18/12)

2012 Mar 23, Pope Benedict XVI
departed for Mexico as part of a pilgrimage that will also take him
to Cuba. He denounced the drug-fueled violence wracking Mexico and
urged Cubans to use dialogue to find new models to replace Marxism.
(AP, 3/23/12)

2012 Mar 25, In Mexico tens of
thousands of people gathered to attend the highlight of Pope
Benedict XVI's visit: an open-air Mass in the shadow of the Christ
the King monument in Guanajuato state.
(AP, 3/25/12)

2012 Mar 26, Pope Benedict XVI
arrived in Santiago, Cuba, in the footsteps of his more famous
predecessor, gently pressing the island's longtime communist leaders
to push through "legitimate" reforms their people desire, while also
criticizing the excesses of capitalism.
(AP, 3/27/12)

2012 Mar 28, In Cuba tens of
thousands of people massed in Havana's Revolution Plaza for Pope
Benedict XVI's Mass on the final day of his visit.
(AP, 3/28/12)

2012 Mar 31, Cuba said it will
honor an appeal by Pope Benedict XVI and declared next week's Good
Friday a holiday for the first time since the early days following
the island's 1959 Revolution, though a decision on whether the move
will be permanent will have to wait.
(AP, 3/31/12)

2012 Apr 5, Pope Benedict XVI
denounced priests who have questioned church teaching on celibacy
and ordaining women, saying they were disobeying his authority to
try to impose their own ideas on the church.
(AP, 4/5/12)

2012 Apr 19, The Vatican’s
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ordered an overhaul of
the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), based in Silver
Spring, Md. I cited radical feminist themes and questioned official
positions on homosexuality and the ordination of women.
(SFC, 4/20/12, p.A6)

2012 May 15, In the Vatican
prominent Legion of Christ priest Rev. Thomas Williams admitted that
he had had a relationship with a woman and had fathered a child "a
number of years ago." The next day the Legion of Christ admitted
that it knew Williams had fathered a child several years ago yet did
not remove him from teaching morality to seminarians and speaking
publicly about ethics and other church issues.
(AP, 5/16/12)

2012 May 19, The Vatican
denounced as criminal a new book, “His Holiness," by journalist
Gianluigi Nuzzi, which reproduced letters and memos to and from Pope
Benedict XVI and his personal secretary.
(SSFC, 5/20/12, p.A4)

2012 May 24, Vatican Bank
president Ettore Gotti Tedeschi was ousted for having leaked
documents and failing to do his job. Tedeschi’s primary position was
head of Spain’s Banco Santander Italian unit in Milan.
(SFC, 5/25/12, p.A2)

2012 May 26, The Vatican
confirmed that the pope's butler, Paolo Gabriele, has been arrested
in its embarrassing leaks scandal, adding a Hollywood twist to a
sordid tale of power struggles, intrigue and corruption in the
highest levels of Catholic Church governance.
(AP, 5/26/12)

2012 Jun 13, The Vatican
proposed making the breakaway Society of St. Pius X, founded in
1969, a "personal prelature," akin to a diocese without borders,
during a meeting with Bishop Bernard Fellay, the society's superior.
(AP, 6/14/12)

2012 Jul 6, China's state-run
Catholic church ordained Father Yue Fusheng as Bishop in the
northeastern city of Harbin in defiance of the Vatican.
(AFP, 7/6/12)

2012 Jul 7, In China the Rev.
Thaddeus Ma Daqin was consecrated as auxiliary bishop of Shanghai.
Ma announced that he would no longer work for the Chinese Patriotic
Catholic Association, the government body that oversees Catholics in
China.
{China, Vatican}
(SFC, 7/11/12, p.A6)

2012 Jul 8, Dozens of women who
attended a Rhode Island high school run by the disgraced Legion of
Christ religious order urged the Vatican to close the program,
saying the psychological abuse they endured trying to live like
teenage nuns led to multiple cases of anorexia, stress-induced
migraines, depression and even suicidal thoughts. On July 12 The
Legion's lay branch Regnum Christi posted a statement on its website
outlining changes.
(AP, 7/9/12)(AP, 7/13/12)

2012 Jul 18, The Council of
Europe released a report showing the Vatican had received compliant
or largely compliant grades on nine of the 16 "key and core"
internationally recognized recommendations to fight money laundering
and terrorist financing. The Vatican had submitted itself to the
Moneyval evaluation process more than two years ago after it signed
onto the 2009 EU Monetary Convention.
(AP, 7/18/12)

2012 Jul 27, The Vatican named
Oakland, Ca., Bishop Salvatore Cordileone (56), a leader in the
fight against same-sex marriage, as the new archbishop of San
Francisco.
(SFC, 7/28/12, p.A1)

2012 Sep 14, Pope Benedict XVI
appealed for peace and reconciliation among religions as violence
over an anti-Islam movie spilled over into Lebanon within hours of
his arrival. One protester was killed in the northern city of
Tripoli in clashes with security forces after a crowd set fire to a
KFC and a Hardee's restaurant to protest against an anti-Muslim
film.
(AP, 9/14/12)

2012 Sep 15, In Lebanon Pope
Benedict XVI appealed for religious freedom in the Middle East,
calling it fundamental for stability in a region bloodied by
sectarian strife.
(AP, 9/15/12)

2012 Oct 2, Pope Benedict XVI's
onetime butler, Paolo Gabriele, declared he was innocent of a
charge of aggravated theft of the pope's private correspondence, but
acknowledged he photocopied the papers and said he feels guilty that
he betrayed the trust of the pontiff he loved like a father.
(AP, 10/2/12)

2012 Oct 6, The pope's butler
was convicted of stealing the pontiff's private documents and
leaking them to a journalist in the gravest Vatican security breach
in recent memory. Paolo Gabriele was sentenced to 18 months in
prison, but the Vatican said a papal pardon was likely.
(AP, 10/6/12)

2012 Oct 7, Pope Benedict XVI
name St. John of Avila, Spain, and St. Hildegard of Bingen, Germany,
as “doctors" of the church. Only 33 other church doctors have been
singled out over the course of Christianity for their contributions
to and influence on Catholic doctrine.
(AP, 10/7/12)

2012 Oct 21, Pope Benedict XVI
added seven more saints onto the roster of Catholic role models in a
bid to reinvigorate the faith in parts of the world where it's
lagging. They included Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American
saint from the US; Mother Marianne Cope, a 19th century Franciscan
nun who cared for leprosy patients in Hawaii; Pedro Calungsod, a
17th century Filipino teenage martyr; Jacques Berthieu, a 19th
century French Jesuit who was killed by rebels in Madagascar;
Giovanni Battista Piamarta, an Italian who founded a religious order
in 1900 and established a Catholic printing and publishing house in
his native Brescia; Carmen Salles y Barangueras, a Spanish nun who
founded a religious order to educate children in 1892; and Anna
Schaeffer, a 19th century German lay woman who became a model for
the sick and suffering after she fell into a boiler and badly burned
her legs.
(AP, 10/21/12)

2012 Oct 24, Pope Benedict XVI
named six new cardinals, adding prelates from Lebanon, the
Philippines, Nigeria, Colombia, India and the United States to the
ranks of senior churchmen who will elect his successor.
(AP, 10/24/12)

2012 Nov 10, A Vatican court
convicted Claudio Sciarpelletti (48), a Holy See computer
technician, of helping the former papal butler in the embarrassing
leak of confidential papal documents and gave him a two-month
suspended sentence.
(AP, 11/10/12)

2012 Nov 24, Pope Benedict XVI
presided over a ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica to formally elevate
six men as Cardinals. They hailed from Colombia, India, Lebanon,
Nigeria, the Philippines and the United States.
(AP, 11/24/12)

2012 Dec 21, Pope Benedict XVI
pressed his opposition to gay marriage, denouncing what he described
as people manipulating their God-given identities to suit their
sexual choices — and destroying the very "essence of the human
creature" in the process.
(AP, 12/21/12)

2012 Dec 22, Pope Benedict XVI
granted his former butler a Christmas pardon, forgiving him in
person during a jailhouse meeting for stealing and leaking private
papers in one of the gravest Vatican security breaches in recent
times. Paolo Gabriele was freed and returned to his Vatican City
apartment where he lives with his wife and three children.
(AP, 12/22/12)

2012 Jason Berry authored
“Render Unto Rome: The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church."
(Econ, 8/18/12, p.24)
2012 The Vatican's Philatelic
and Numismatic Office, which sells commemorative coins and stamps
featuring popes, saints and the like, began offering a special €20
($26) stamp and certificate package to help offset a
recession-induced drop in corporate sponsors for the restoration of
the colonnade surrounding St. Peter’s Square.
(AP, 11/27/12)

2013 Jan 13, Four women went
topless in St. Peter's Square to protest the Vatican's opposition to
gay marriage. Police quickly took the women away.
(AP, 1/13/13)

2013 Jan 31, The book “They
Promised Me Paradise" by Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca, who shot
and wounded Pope John Paul in 1981, was released in Italy. In the
book Agca writes that Iran’s late leader Ayhatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini told him to kill John Paul in the name of God.
(SFC, 2/1/13, p.A2)

2013 Feb 9, At the
Vatican the Knights of Malta marked its 900th birthday with a
colorful procession through St. Peter's Square, a Mass in the
basilica and an audience with Pope Benedict XVI, himself a member of
the onetime chivalrous order drawn from Europe's nobility. The
Knights are at once a Roman Catholic religious order, an aid group
that runs soup kitchens, hospitals and ambulance services around the
globe, and a sovereign entity that prints its own passports and
enjoys diplomatic relations with 104 countries — yet has no country
to call its own.
(AP, 2/9/13)

2013 Feb 11, Pope Benedict XVI
(85) announced that he would resign Feb. 28 — the first pontiff to
do so in nearly 600 years. The decision set the stage for a conclave
to elect a new pope before the end of March.
(AP, 2/11/13)

2013 Feb 22, Pope Benedict XVI,
who steps down Feb. 28, named Monsignor Ettore Balestrero
ambassador, or nunzio, to Colombia. Balestrero was head of the Holy
See's delegation to the Council of Europe's Moneyval committee,
which evaluated the Vatican's anti-money laundering and anti-terror
financing measures.
(AP, 2/22/13)

2013 Feb 25, Britain's most
senior Roman Catholic cleric, Cardinal Keith O'Brien (74), resigned
following allegations he behaved in an inappropriate way with
priests, and said he would not take part in the election of Pope
Benedict's replacement. O'Brien said he had tendered his resignation
some months ago.
(Reuters, 2/25/13)

2013 Mar 13, Cardinal Jorge
Mario Bergoglio (76), known for his work with the poor in Buenos
Aires' slums, was elected as the 266th Pope. He became the first
Jesuit pope and first non-European since the Middle Ages and decided
to call himself Francis after St. Francis of Assisi.
(AP, 3/14/13)

2013 Mar 19, In Vatican City
Pope Francis laid out the priorities of his pontificate during his
installation Mass, urging the princes, presidents, sheiks and
thousands of ordinary people attending to protect the environment,
the weakest and the poorest.
(AP, 3/19/13)

2013 Mar 28, Pope Francis
washed and kissed the feet of two young women at Rome’s Casal del
Marmo juvenile detention center, a surprising departure from church
rules that restrict the Holy Thursday ritual to men.
(AP, 3/28/13)

2013 Mar 31, Pope Francis
delivered a plea for peace in his first Easter Sunday message to the
world.
(AP, 3/31/13)

2013 Apr 6, Pope Francis named
a Spanish Franciscan to be the No. 2 at the Vatican's office for
religious orders, his first appointment to the Vatican bureaucracy.
Jose Rodriguez (60), who also was elevated to archbishop, replaced
US Archbishop Joseph Tobin, who was transferred from the
high-ranking Vatican post to a Midwestern US archdiocese following
his efforts to mediate tensions between the Vatican and American
nuns.
(AP, 4/6/13)

2013 Apr 13, Pope Francis
marked his first month as pope by naming nine high-ranking prelates
from around the globe to a permanent advisory group to help him run
the Catholic Church and study a reform of the Vatican bureaucracy.
(AP, 4/13/13)

2013 Apr 29, The Catholic
Church in Brazil said it has excommunicated Father Roberto Francisco
Daniel for defending homosexuality, open marriage and other
practices counter to Church teaching in online videos.
(Reuters, 4/30/13)

2013 May 15, The Vatican
ordered disgraced Scottish Cardinal Keith O'Brien to leave Scotland
for several months to pray and atone for sexual misconduct, issuing
a rare public sanction against a "prince of the church" and the
first such punishment meted out by Pope Francis.
(AP, 5/15/13)

2013 May 25, In Sicily Rev.
Giuseppe "Pino" Puglisi (d.1993) was beatified by the Vatican in a
ceremony in Palermo, where he worked in a mobster-infested, poor
neighborhood.
(AP, 5/25/13)

2013 Jun 28, Vatican official
Monsignor Nunzio Scarano and two others were arrested by Italian
police for allegedly trying to illegally bring 20 million euros ($26
million) in cash into the country from Switzerland with a private
jet.
(AP, 6/28/13)(SFC, 6/29/13, p.A3)

2013 Jul 5, Pope Francis
cleared Pope John Paul II for sainthood, approving a miracle
attributed to his intercession and setting up a remarkable dual
canonization along with another beloved pope, John XXIII.
(AP, 7/5/13)

2013 Jul 11, Pope Francis
overhauled the laws that govern the Vatican City State,
criminalizing leaks of Vatican information and specifically listing
sexual violence, prostitution and possession of child pornography as
crimes against children that can be punished by up to 12 years in
prison.
(AP, 7/11/13)

2013 Jul 22, Pope Francis
arrived in Rio de Janeiro to begin a weeklong visit to participate
in the World Youth Day festival.
(AP, 7/22/13)

2013 Jul 24, The Vatican named
a new Scottish archbishop to replace disgraced Cardinal Keith
O'Brien, who resigned in February after admitting sexual misconduct.
Monsignor Leo Cushley (52) was named the new Roman Catholic
archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh after years working in the
Vatican bureaucracy.
(AP, 7/24/13)

2013 Jul 25, In Brazil Pope
Francis urged young Catholics to shake up the church and make a
"mess" in their dioceses by going out into the streets to spread the
faith as he visited one of Rio's most violent slums and opened the
church's World Youth Day on a rain-soaked Copacabana Beach.
(AP, 7/26/13)

2013 Jul 28, In Brazil Pope
Francis wrapped up a historic trip to his home continent with a Mass
on Copacabana beach that drew a reported 3 million people.
(AP, 7/28/13)

2013 Jul 29, Pope Francis
reached out to gays, saying he wouldn't judge priests for their
sexual orientation in a remarkably open and wide-ranging news
conference as he returned from his first foreign trip.
(AP, 7/29/13)

2013 Oct 1, The Vatican bank,
dogged for decades by scandals and opaque dealings, published the
first annual report in its 125-year history.
(Reuters, 10/1/13)

2013 Oct 13, The Vatican
beatified 522 people — mostly priests and nuns — who were killed in
the turmoil that led to Spain's 1936-39 civil war.
(AP, 10/13/13)

2013 Oct 23, Pope Francis
temporarily expelled German Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst (53)
from his diocese because of a scandal over a 31-million-euro project
to build a new residence complex, but refused calls to remove him
permanently.
(AP, 10/23/13)(SFC, 10/24/13, p.A3)

2013 Nov 26, Pope Francis
issued the mission statement for his papacy, outlining how the
Catholic Church and the papacy itself must be reformed to create a
more missionary and merciful church that gets its hands dirty as it
seeks out the poor and oppressed. The Pope denounced the global
financial system that excludes the poor as he issued “Evangelii
Gaudium" (The Joy of the Gospel).
(AP, 11/26/13)(SFC, 11/27/13, p.A4)

2013 Dec 11, Time magazine
selected Pope Francis as its Person of the Year, saying the Catholic
Church's new leader has changed the perception of the 2,000-year-old
institution in an extraordinary way in a short time.
(AP, 12/11/13)

2013 Dec 19, A 52-year-old
Italian man set himself on fire in St. Peter's Square in the Vatican
and suffered serious burns.
(Reuters, 12/19/13)

2013 Robert Calderisi authored
“Earthly Mission: The Catholic Church and World Development."
(Econ, 9/7/13, p.81)

2014 Jan 12, Pope Francis named
his first batch of cardinals, choosing 19 men from Asia, Africa,
Latin America and elsewhere, including the developing nations of
Haiti and Burkina Faso.
(AP, 1/12/14)

2014 Jan 15, Pope Francis named
an oversight commission of cardinals for the Vatican Bank, replacing
all but one of the appointees made by his presdecessor Benedict XVI.
(SFC, 1/16/14, p.A2)

2014 Jan 17, It was reported
that Pope Benedict XVI defrocked 384 priests from 2011-2012 for
sexually molesting children. This was a dramatic increase over the
171 priests removed in 2008 and 2009, when the Vatican first
provided details on the number of priests defrocked.
(AP, 1/17/14)

2014 Jan 21, Vatican Monsignor
Nunzio Scaran, already on trial for allegedly plotting to smuggle 20
million euros ($26 million) from Switzerland to Italy, was arrested
in Salerno in a separate case for allegedly using his Vatican bank
accounts to launder money.
(AP, 1/21/14)

2014 Jan 24, President Francois
Hollande spoke of "convergence" on international issues after talks
with Pope Francis amid a swirling scandal over the French leader's
love life and divisions in France over issues like abortion and
euthanasia.
(AFP, 1/24/14)

2014 Jan 28, The Vatican
library and four Japanese historical institutes agreed to inventory,
catalogue and digitize 10,000 documents from a lost Japanese archive
detailing the persecution of Christians in Japan in the 17th-19th
centuries.
(AP, 1/28/14)

2014 Jan, German officials
seized a box packed with 14 condoms filled with cocaine from South
America. The 340 grams of cocaine, valued at 40,000 euros ($55,200),
was seized at the international airport in Leipzig and was addressed
to the main postal center at the Vatican.
(AFP, 3/23/14)

2014 Feb 5, A UN human rights
committee urged the Holy See to open its files on pedophiles and
bishops who concealed their crimes saying the Vatican
"systematically" adopted policies that allowed priests to rape and
molest tens of thousands of children over decades.
(AP, 2/5/14)

2014 Feb 22, Vatican Pope
Francis appointed his first batch of cardinals, as his predecessor
Benedict made a surprise rare appearance at the ceremony.
(AFP, 2/22/14)

2014 Feb 24, Pope Francis
announced the first major overhaul of the Vatican's outdated and
inefficient bureaucracy in a quarter-century, creating an economics
secretariat to control all economic, administrative, personnel and
procurement functions of the Holy See.
(AP, 2/24/14)

2014 Mar 22, Pope Francis named
the initial members of a commission to advise him on sex abuse
policy, tapping lay and religious experts.
(AP, 3/22/14)

2014 Mar 26, Pope Francis
permanently removed German bishop Franz-Peter Terbartz-van Elst from
his Limburg diocese after his 31 million-euro ($43-million) new
residence complex caused an uproar among the faithful. Francis had
temporarily expelled him in October pending a church inquiry.
(AP, 3/26/14)

2014 Mar 27, A visibly
energized President Barack Obama held a nearly hour-long audience
with Pope Francis at the Vatican, expressing his great admiration
for the pontiff and inviting him to visit the White House.
(AP, 3/27/14)

2014 Mar 28, Italian bishops
published guidelines adopting a Vatican-backed sex abuse policy that
says they have no obligation to inform police if they suspect a
child has been molested.
(SFC, 3/29/14, p.A2)

2014 Apr 3, Britain's Queen
Elizabeth II paid a private call on Pope Francis at the Vatican,
making him the fifth pontiff she has met.
(AP, 4/3/14)

2014 Apr 10, Pope Francis said
"enough" to human trafficking, denouncing it as a crime against
humanity as police leaders and religious groups from around the
world pledged to work together to combat it.
(Reuters, 4/10/14)

2014 Apr 20, Pope Francis, in
his Easter address "Urbi et Orbi" (Latin for 'to the city and to the
world') denounced the "immense wastefulness" in the world while many
go hungry and called for an end to conflicts in Syria, Ukraine and
Africa.
(Reuters, 4/20/14)

2014 Apr 27, Pope Francis
declared Popes John XXIII and John Paul II saints before some
800,000 people in an unprecedented ceremony made even more historic
by the presence of emeritus Pope Benedict XVI in St. Peter's Square.
(AP, 4/27/14)

2014 May 6, The Vatican
released comprehensive statistics for the first time on how it has
disciplined priests accused of raping and molesting children. It
said 848 priests have been defrocked and an additional 2,572 given
lesser sanctions over the past decade.
(SFC, 5/7/14, p.A3)

2014 May 23, A United Nations
committee concluded that the Vatican has effective worldwide control
over bishops and priests who must comply with a UN anti-torture
treaty, a finding that could expose the Catholic Church to new
lawsuits by victims of clerical sex abuse.
(AP, 5/23/14)

2014 May 24, Pope Francis
called for urgent steps to end Syria's three-year-old civil war as
he arrived in neighboring Jordan.
(Reuters, 5/24/14)

2014 May 25, Pope Francis
landed at Israel's international airport, kicking off the final leg
of his Holy Land pilgrimage.
(AP, 5/25/14)

2014 Jun 5, Pope Francis ousted
the all-Italian board of the Vatican's financial watchdog agency and
installed a more international set of experts following clashes
between the board and the agency's director.
(AP, 6/5/14)

2014 Jun 8, Israeli and
Palestinian presidents met in an unprecedented prayer meeting with
Pope Francis at the Vatican. Francis hoped the gesture will
"re-create a desire, a possibility" of eventually relaunching the
Middle East's stalled peace process.
(Reuters, 6/8/14)

2014 Jun 27, The Vatican said
that Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, a former ambassador to the
Dominican Rep., was found guilty for sexually abusing boys and
sentenced to laicization.
(SFC, 6/28/14, p.A4)

2014 Jul 7, Pope Francis begged
forgiveness in his first meeting with Catholics sexually abused by
members of the clergy and vowed to hold bishops accountable for
their handling of pedophile priests.
(SFC, 7/8/14, p.A4)

2014 Aug 12, The Vatican called
on Muslim religious leaders to condemn "unspeakable criminal acts"
by Islamic State militants who have taken a series of cities in
northern Iraq.
(Reuters, 8/12/14)

2014 Aug 14, Pope Francis
arrived in South Korea for a 5-day visit and left the airport in a
compact black Kia that many South Koreans would consider too humble
a conveyance for a globally powerful figure. He called for renewed
efforts to forge peace on the war-divided Korean Peninsula and for
both sides to avoid "fruitless" criticisms and shows of force.
(AP, 8/14/14)

2014 Aug 17, In South Korea
Pope Francis made his strongest gesture yet to reach out to China,
saying he wants to improve relations and insisting that the Catholic
Church isn't coming in as a "conqueror" but is rather a partner in
dialogue.
(AP, 8/17/14)

2014 Sep 17, Pope Francis
signed on Sri Lanka's first saint, bending the Vatican's rules once
again to bypass the usual requirement that a second miracle be
confirmed. Francis is expected to canonize the Rev. Giuseppe Baz, a
17th-century missionary, during his January visit to Sri Lanka.
(AP, 9/17/14)

2014 Sep 21, Pope Francis
visited Albania and warned that religion can never be used to
justify violence.
(AFP, 9/21/14)

2014 Oct 19, Pope Francis
beatified Pope Paul VI, concluding the remarkable meeting of bishops
debating family issues. They failed to reach consensus on the two
most divisive issues at the synod: on welcoming gays and divorced
and civilly remarried couples.
(AP, 10/19/14)

2014 Nov 14, At the Vatican
three members of the Femen group appeared on St Peter's square
wearing only leather mini-skirts and flower garlands in their hair
in what they described as a protest over Pope Francis's upcoming
visit to the European Parliament.
(AP, 11/14/14)

2014 Nov 15, Pope Francis
denounced the right to die movement, saying it's a "false sense of
compassion" to consider euthanasia as an act of dignity when in fact
it's a sin against God and creation.
(AP, 11/15/14)

2014 Nov 22, Pope Francis
tenderly embraced children with autism spectrum disorders, some of
whom avoided meeting his gaze, during an audience aimed at offering
solidarity to people living with the condition.
(AP, 11/22/14)

2014 Nov 23, Pope Francis
canonized six new saints, including a priest and a nun from the
Indian state of Kerala and 4 Italians. Eufrasia Eluvathingal and
Kuriakose Elias Chavara were from the Syro-Malabar Church, one of 22
Eastern rite churches that operates in full communion with Rome.
(AP, 11/23/14)

2014 Nov 25, Pope Francis spoke
before delegates of the EU Council in Strasbourg, France. He warned
them that Europe had become too fearful and self-absorbed urged them
to focus on poverty, immigration and joblessness.
(SFC, 11/26/14, p.A2)

2014 Nov 28, Pope Francis
arrived in Turkey to encourage Muslim leaders to take a stronger
stand against extremists who twist religion to justify terrorism. He
condemned the Islamic State group's assault on Christians and other
religious minorities in Iraq and Syria.
(AP, 11/28/14)

2014 Dec 3, Pope Francis
assured Dominican authorities that the truth must prevail in the
case of his former ambassador to the Caribbean country who is
accused of sexually abusing young boys. The Holy See recalled Jozef
Wesolowski last year after rumors surfaced in Santo Domingo that he
allegedly paid shoeshine boys to masturbate.
(AP, 12/3/14)

2014 Dec 22, Pope Francis
listed 15 "ailments" of the Vatican Curia during his annual
Christmas greetings to the cardinals, bishops and priests who run
the central administration of the 1.2-billion strong Catholic
Church.
(AP, 12/22/14)

2014 Dec 25, At the Vatican
Femen protester and Ukrainian activist Yana Zhdanova shouted "God is
woman" when she uncovered her chest in St. Peter’s Square, about an
hour after Pope Francis had greeted and blessed tens of thousands of
faithful. She was detained by police and released on Dec 27 with
orders to never set foot again in Vatican City State.
(AP, 12/27/14)

2015 Jan 4, At the Vatican Pope
Francis named 15 new cardinals from 14 countries, including many
from Latin America and Africa.
(AP, 1/4/15)(SFC, 1/5/15, p.A3)

2015 Jan 16, In the Philippines
Pope Francis issued his strongest defense yet of church teaching
opposing artificial contraception, using a rally in Asia's largest
Catholic nation to urge families to be "sanctuaries of respect for
life." The Philippines is the only country in the world — aside from
the Vatican — where divorce is forbidden.
(AP, 1/16/15)

2015 Jan 18, In the Philippines
Pope Francis concluded his trip to Asia with an open-air Mass for a
rain-drenched crowd in Manila that the Vatican and the government
said drew up to seven million people.
(Reuters, 1/18/15)

2015 Feb 3, Pope Francis
approved a decree declaring slain Salvadoran archbishop Oscar Romero
a martyr for the church. The cleric, a defender of the poor and
vocal critic of the military, was shot dead in 1980 while
celebrating mass. Pope Francis said Romero was killed out of hatred
for his Catholic faith.
(AFP, 2/3/15)(SFC, 2/4/15, p.A5)

2015 Feb 14, In Vatican City
Pope Francis elevated 20 new “princes of the church" into the
College of Cardinals.
(SSFC, 2/15/15, p.A12)